


Where is Our Gravity? (Hunger Games AU)

by the_musical_alchemist



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: AU, F/M, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-31 14:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6474403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_musical_alchemist/pseuds/the_musical_alchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Ed remembers the hopelessness of the arena and how it sunk under his skin like poison. It’s a curse that never leaves you, just something else you resign yourself to in order to keep on living.</i><br/><br/>A compilation of interconnected drabbles (not necessarily in chronological order) wherein the Fullmetal Alchemist characters switch roles with those in The Hunger Games trilogy. This is a collaboration between myself and pahndah.tumblr.com (who also illustrated the AU).<br/>(Warnings, pairings and characters will be added as more chapters are written, when they are required!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Brother!”

Ed twitches awake at the sound of his brother’s voice. He stands in the doorway, half leaning in, with a smile that breaks across his whole face. Before Ed can make sense of his own surroundings, he fleetingly observes that his little brother’s jaw looks squarer than usual, and if he’s not mistaken, his shoulders have broadened too.

He casts a glance at the digital clock mounted to the wall, waiting for the room to come into focus. It’s quarter to midnight, though, for how long he’s been asleep, he can’t fully say.

“Al,” he croaks. He pulls himself into a sitting position but the wound in his side screams in protest. Black spots spray across his vision from the pain. Dizzied, he slides back down with a hiss.

 _That’s right_ , he recalls. His entire body throbs all the way up to his brain. The bed feels like it’s undulating beneath him. _I was shot_.

Ed runs his flesh hand along the gauze wrapped around his waist. The wound flares with pain from the contact.

“What’s going on?” Ed asks, lifting a curious eyebrow. “Why are you smiling like that?”

Alphonse steps into the room with his hands behind his back. With a slight bounce, he moves to Ed’s beside.

“They’re back,” he says.

Ed blinks. His stomach knots, though, he isn’t certain whether it’s from anticipation or anxiety.

“Brother,” Al says, laughing in disbelief. “Winry is back.”

* * *

Ed limps through the hallway with Al’s support. His little brother’s arm is looped around his waist while Ed slings his over Al’s shoulders. Each step is a strain on his stiff prosthetic leg, and his wound burns like fire, but he bites back the pain and trudges on.

His mind swirls with such a vast collection of thoughts and what-ifs that he’s unable to discern one over the other. All he can make any sense of is the pounding in his chest.

_Winry. Winry is here. Winry is alive._

Ed’s eyes sting at the very thought, but he’s far too overwhelmed to cry. All he can do is keep moving forward, his stomach twisted, his chest heavy, and with his brain ready to burst.

Al falters as they turn the corner, bringing Ed to a short stop. They look ahead and see two figures tangled in each other, one in 13’s dismal gray garb while the other wears nothing but a hospital gown. Wrapped in each other’s arms, they tremble against the wall and collapse to the floor. It takes Ed a moment to realize the one in gray is Roy. And the other one–the blond woman…

“Riza Hawkeye,” Al explains in a whisper, pulling Ed along. He stumbles on his feet, but matches his brother’s pace once the initial astonishment wears off.

“What?” Ed looks over his shoulder as they pass, but the two don’t seem to notice the brothers at all. With a twisted heart, Ed sees that they’re both crying.

“She was rescued too,” says Alphonse when they’re out of earshot. “And Maria Ross. Everyone is here, Brother.”

Ed’s jumbled brain whirls that much more. That was her. The Hawk’s Eye. He’d heard stories from Roy and Christmas back in the arena of how she wasn’t all here anymore. But having now seen her in the flesh, clinging to Roy like a lifeline, Ed feels strangled. With a record body count, she’s the most notorious tribute to ever play. But her skill and self-preservation in the arena wasn’t without a steep price.

A shiver courses through Ed. He knows first hand that living through the Games is almost as bad as dying in them. It doesn’t end when you win. That’s far too merciful. He thinks of what Winry told him back on the beach. How Riza doesn’t get through a night without screaming. It’s something Ed can’t blame her for.

Ed straightens up, despite his aching side, when Alphonse stops in front of a sliding silver door. He flattens his metal hand against it, the hand _she_ gave him, and waits with bated breath.

“Al,” Ed says, closing his eyes. “You don’t think…”

His mind flickers to the image of her on the Capitol broadcast, frail and unfocused, with the tortured look in her eyes that stirred Ed’s stomach. He shakes the thought off. It doesn’t matter. She’s still Winry and the only thing that matters is that she’s finally safe. With him.

“Nevermind,” Ed sighs. Before he can convince himself this is a bad idea, he slides the door open.

Ed’s breath catches in his throat. The room is small, only able to fit a small bed, a facing cabinet, IV fluid, and a monitor hooked to a mess of wires Ed’s blurry mind can’t make heads or tails of at this moment.

Between blinks, he processes that Izumi is in the room as well, her hand resting on Winry’s arm as she speaks to her in a low voice.

Winry.

Ed thinks his legs must have given out from under him, because Alphonse is quick to offer him full support, pulling him to his feet. Ed’s head feels light as he starts forward, the floor moving like waves beneath his steps.

Winry’s eyes snap to his, and Ed stops with a short breath. Alphonse’s fingers dig into his arm as he steadies him.

She’s smaller than he remembers, but he quickly realizes that the correct word is emaciated. The hollows of her cheeks have sunken into her pallid face. An IV needle punctures her rail-thin arm. For a brief moment, all Ed can wonder is how the careful hands that gave him an arm and a leg can possibly look so weak and tremulous now.

They are both unmoving, nothing audible but the monitor’s steady beeping. Her bloodshot eyes–the same wide blues that offered him solace after his mother died, kept him anchored in both arenas, and showed up in his dreams every night since–restlessly sweep up and down his body, as if the pieces of her brain are clashing together, unable to find purchase on a conclusion that makes proper sense to her. She stares like she can’t afford to blink, lest she lose the weak grasp she has on this moment.

“Winry,” Ed says, but it comes out a choked whisper. Suddenly, he finds the will to move. He extricates himself from his brother and limps toward her, his lips forming a smile before he even realizes it.

“Edward,” Izumi says, but Ed ignores her. He reaches out, the flurry of thoughts in his mind too abstract to offer any coherence, but urging him forward like a string wound around his spine, pulling him closer, and closer, and closer…

“Edward,” Winry says thoughtfully. As something clicks inside of her, she peels the tabs that connect the monitor to her heart rate and suddenly she’s on her feet, moving toward him. Her wild eyes settle on him, and something flashes in them. Passion, Ed thinks. Or desperation. They’ve been apart far too long. He can’t say he feels too differently.

Ed opens his mouth to say her name again, but is cut off when she rips the IV out of her arm and lunges at him, aiming the needle to his throat. Her nails rake across his cheek before he dodges, falling back against the floor, his vision flashing black. Dimly, he hears Alphonse call for him.

“Winry!” Izumi shouts, scrambling through the narrow space between the bed and medical cabinets. She grabs Winry by the arms and wrenches her back. The metal IV rack crashes to the floor.

“Edward,” Winry forces out through her teeth. She thrashes in Izumi’s arms and screams, “Killer! Monster!” Her feet slip wildly against the tile floor as she fights to break free from Izumi’s grip.

“Winry?” Ed asks weakly. He shakes his head, fully convinced that he’s still asleep in his hospital bed, and this is nothing but a twisted nightmare. He brings a hand to his stinging cheek.

“Edward Elric! He’s a monster! We have to kill him, Izumi, before he kills you!” Winry shrieks. Saliva dribbles down her chin. Izumi struggles to keep her in place, stumbling back into the counter. A stack of files cascades to the floor from the impact.

(animation by [pahndah](http://pahndah.tumblr.com/))

“Winry!” Al yells. Ed notes that his brother has joined him on the floor and has braced his hands on either of his shoulders. Ed’s heart surges up his throat, as if he’s falling. The tears streaming down Winry’s face, and the venom spiked through her voice when she says his name makes him wish he were dead.

“Let me go!” Winry throws her body forward. She fights Izumi’s hold and sobs, “He killed everyone in 12! He killed my mom and dad and Granny and he’s going to kill us too! He’s a mutt, Izumi!”

Ed doesn’t realize that Al has brought them both into a standing position. The room spins out of focus as Winry’s voice echoes through his head, striking him more lethally than the bullet in his side. What is she saying? Who is this mutt? It’s all too much to process. All he knows is that between one moment and the next, Al has dragged him out into the hall and slammed the door after them. From outside, he’s barely able to hear Winry’s hysterical sobbing as Izumi, assumedly, subdues her. If such a thing is even possible.

“Brother,” Alphonse says, squeezing him. Ed closes his eyes. He shakes his head.

“Ed,” he tries. But still, nothing. All he can think of is Riza Hawkeye in the hallway, tormented by her kills, driven mad by a Game she was nothing but an inconsequential piece in.

 _Killer. Monster. Mutt_. Words he never imagined he’d ever hear in Winry’s voice, let alone directed toward him. Suddenly, Ed can’t take it anymore. The relentless overlap of thoughts and emotions finally breaks him. He doesn’t know what to feel, whether it’s fear, grief, sadness, anger, or a combination of it all.

So he drops to the floor, slipping out of his brother’s grasp. And he screams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beautiful animation by http://pahndah.tumblr.com! I really hope you liked this! Context will be provided soon. Thank you so much for reading <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This one so happens to take place sometime after the first one shot (if you’re a fan of the books/films, toward the middle of the Mockingjay timeline). And I really hope you enjoy it <3

Roy wrings his hands together, itching to fiddle with the lighter he left with Riza in 13. His veins haven’t stopped buzzing since this afternoon. He volunteered to take first watch, claiming he was not yet tired when the truth was that he was terrified of what would come when he closed his eyes. He’s no stranger to nightmares, having survived two Hunger Games. But today’s loss was different. His teammates aren’t tributes, and the casualties were not inevitable. They could have been saved, had he been more careful, more conscious, less afraid.

He drops his head, resting his forehead on joined fingers. The safe house is dark, save the moonlight filtering in through the curtains. The humming A/C unit fills the room with comfortable noise, as if silence would leave him vulnerable to his own thoughts.

Looking frighteningly small, Edward is curled up on an armchair, his blond hair loose and mussed as he shifts and turns in his sleep. Roy has trouble wrapping his mind around the idea of this fifteen year old child being their salvation. When he first saw him at the Quell’s Tribute Parade, he’d been stunned. Despite having watched his Game and seen him win, nothing could have prepared Roy for what he saw in the flesh.

What you see on TV isn’t real. The shots are manipulated not to catch the tremors in your hands, and makeup is strategically caked over the sunken hollows beneath your eyes. Every second is another piece of an intricate lie broadcasted by the Capitol. Roy knows that. Hell, the version of him they show on TV lives a pretty good life. He’s envious of that guy.

Edward Elric isn’t the pining lover the Games made him out to be. He’s not even the confident rebel in 13’s propos. He’s a kid. A scared, exhausted kid who continues to fight because he still has so much left to lose.

That’s what he saw in his eyes that night at the parade. A fire that would burn anyone who dared try and take the little he has left. But the resolve of someone too weary and gentle to fight. It was an odd combination. Roy still thinks so. And what scares him more than anything is knowing that it’s exactly how the Mockingjay needs to be. At least one he’s willing to follow.

“Roy Mustang.”

Roy’s head snaps up. He hears the clang of metal against metal as Winry readjusts in her binding. Her wrists are bloodied and chafing from the cuffs that chain her to the staircase railing. She slumps forward, her head lolling onto her shoulder from exhaustion. With her arms twisted behind her back, he cannot imagine the position is comfortable.

“I thought you were asleep,” Roy says softly, so not to wake the others. He can’t help the way his heart skips at the sound of his name uttered in such an inquiring voice. But despite that, he doesn’t feel the disquiet his teammates do when looking at her.

Roy’s eyes flicker to Winry’s raw wrists and he feels nauseous. While the others, and even Winry herself, insist she’s volatile, Roy refuses to believe it. What stirs his stomach about the whole ordeal is the memory of everyone back home calling Riza mad.

He tightens his hand into a fist, digging his nails into his skin. As if the pain can chase away the thought of _her_ in Winry’s place, chained up for something she can’t control, and being treated like an animal when she’s the only one who’s been able to keep Roy sane and steady.

“I’d love to sleep,” Winry admits through a frail voice. She yawns, brushing a strand of hair off her cheek with her shoulder. After a few blinks, she sighs. “But if I sleep, I’ll dream.”

The weary simplicity in that statement makes Roy shiver. He searches Winry’s eyes, trying to match them to those of the gentle young girl from the Quell. They’re familiar the way dejavu is. Fleeting and difficult to place, but undeniably true. She’s still Winry, the way Riza is still Riza. She isn’t broken, she’s only lost. And she sure as hell won’t ever find her way back if everyone has given up on her.

Roy glances at Edward.

Well, not _everyone_.

“I have memories from the Quell,” Winry says. Her eyes drop to her lap. “But they’re hazy. I heard your name a lot more in the Capitol, and it was really hard to piece that Roy Mustang to the one I remembered from the arena.” She furrows her eyebrows. “The people Ed and I met together, any memories intertwined with him…” She bites her lip, shaking her head slightly. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It’s like seeing double, but the images are different. There’s a miniscule overlap, and the edges are kind of frayed. I can’t tell which is real and which isn’t.”

“Ask me anything you want to know,” Roy says. “I promise I won’t lie to you, Winry. You can trust us.”

“That’s not even it,” she says, though he does note that she’s relaxed some, perhaps opening herself up to him. She looks up with watery eyes. “In the Capitol, Riza and I had adjoining cells. She told you that, right?”

Roy draws in a swift breath. Riza’s name sends a jolt of electricity down his spine. He wasn’t even certain Winry knew her outside 13’s compound.

“No,” Roy says evenly. His heart pounds against his chest, though, outwardly, his resolve doesn’t waver. He’s grown fairly good at feigning collectivity over the years.

Winry looks down, somewhat of a lamentful smile touching her lips. “We talked through the walls. About her life in District 4, Granny and I’s prosthetics business, and she talked about you quite a bit. The name ‘Roy Mustang’ passed between us often.”

A heaviness sets over Roy’s chest. For a moment, he isn’t quite sure how to breathe. Winry’s voice pulls him back as the wave of dizziness passes and he regains his hold on the present.

“They tortured her.” Winry says brittlely. “I don’t know what they did. She wouldn’t ever say.” She shakes her head, unable to comprehend the words coming out of her own mouth. “She didn’t ever beg or plead for them to stop. Not like I did, or even Maria. She only ever screamed because she couldn’t help it. It was as if…” A tear rolls down Winry’s cheek. When Roy blinks, he feels moisture in his own eyes. His throat suddenly feels very tight.

“I think she welcomed it,” Winry whispers. “Like she thought she deserved it or something.”

Roy knows this is true. He’s spent far too many sleepless nights entangled with her, sharing dreams of a brighter future, trying to convince her that she isn’t the monster she thinks she is or someone unworthy of any happiness.

Her being tortured isn’t new information either. Even so, Roy feels hollowed. Though Riza never said it outright, he saw the haunted look in her eyes when she undressed for the first time since being rescued. Her entire back had been marred with rubbery splotches. The kind Roy recognized all too well to be burns.

She insisted she was fine, and not to worry. But before he could stop himself, he’d pressed his lips to her shoulder blade and went on to kiss every scar with quivering lips, cursing himself for not being there to protect her. For letting her suffer alone.

She sank to her knees, bringing Roy with her. And that was when she broke down, sobbing apologies, begging him not to fuss over her when there were more important matters at hand. But all Roy could do was hug her from behind, digging his nose into the crook of her neck, holding her until the shaking stopped.

Guilt crosses Winry’s face as more tears fall. She sniffs and says, “I’m sorry, Roy. There wasn’t anything I could do for her. All I could do was listen to her scream.”

“It’s not your fault,” Roy says with a hard swallow. How could she even think to apologize when her suffering was arguably worse, and continues even still?

“She was kind to me,” Winry says, closing her eyes. “We were friends.”

“Winry,” Roy begins, but stops himself. What can he possibly say to her? That it’s alright? That any of this is alright? She’s no fool. You don’t become a victor by being a fool, after all.

“I trusted Riza.” Winry’s eyes open. “And so I trust you. If…if I get anything wrong…you’ll help me, right?”

The chaotic, desolate look in her eyes draws Roy in like a whirlpool he can’t seem to swim free from. The more he struggles, the deeper he’ll sink. All he can do is nod his head, desperately trying not to picture the agony Winry and Riza shared, that Roy can never understand.

“I’m afraid,” Winry whispers. The chains clink as she shifts. She clenches her fists. “Ed…he isn’t anything like I remember. I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.” She grits her teeth as more tears drip onto her lap, soaking into her dark military issued pants. Through a gasp, she forces out, “I just don’t know. My memories of him, and the knowledge that he killed my family…trying to convince me it isn’t real is like trying to convince me that these chains aren’t real. Or that you, sitting in front of me–”

“Answer me this,” Roy says. He scoots closer, lowering his voice, hoping to somehow subdue her before she breaks out into hysterics again. Roy traps her trembling gaze in his steady eyes. “You remember the torture, right? You remember the trackerjackers.”

Winry chokes on a sob. She nods slowly.

“And more importantly,” Roy goes on, “you remember the Capitol. What they did to Maria and Riza while you were held captive. What they’ve done to the districts. The fact that you were thrown into the arena twice.”

She nods again, the tears escaping freely as she has no hands to wipe her eyes.

“That’s the enemy,” Roy says, stressing it as best as he can in a low murmur. “We’re trying to take them down so the districts will be free and no one else will have to die, or live with blood on their hands. Edward is the Mockingjay. He’s a symbol for the people. Without him, none of this is possible. For now, that’s all we need you to understand.”

“I just…” She bites her lip again. Roy instinctively raises a hand to reach for her, but thinks better of it and lets it drop to his lap.

“That’s what they told me you’d say.” Her shoulders shake with quiet sobs. Frustrated doesn’t seem like the right word to describe her. No, she looks absolutely desolate. Desperate to latch onto one truth because too many contradictory versions clash inside of her head.

“Riza is your friend,” Roy tries, her name a burning lump in the back of this throat. “You said you trusted her.”

Roy closes his eyes. Her touch, warm and enveloping, lingers on his skin even now. Knowing that she’s back in 13 is all the motivation he needs to make it through this warzone.

“She loves you,” Winry says quietly.

Roy is almost tempted to say something of similar meaning. The way Ed looked after her in the Quell and drags himself through his own suffering just to be with her and help her find her way back, is transcendent. Ed doesn’t love Winry. No, that’s far too understated. He exists because she does. It’s so internal, so unequivocal, that he probably doesn’t fully realize it himself.

What Roy says instead is, “I love her too. That’s what I fight for.”

Winry’s eyes snap to his. She shrugs a shoulder to wipe her tear-tracked cheek against her sleeve, and swallows.

“Okay,” she says. Her lips form something close to a smile. “So tell me. I’m chained to a staircase railing. Real or not real?”

“Real,” Roy says.

Winry considers this with a nod. She proceeds to try, “Your name is Roy Mustang. You’re from District 4. You won the Hunger Games when you were seventeen. Before we left, you married Riza Hawkeye in District 13.”

“Real,” Roy says again.

Now, she takes a deep breath. The question resting on her tongue springs forth, and Roy is unprepared for it.

“Edward Elric was reaped for the 74th Hunger Games alongside me,” she says, screwing her eyes shut. “He pretended to love me in order to survive. He led the annihilation of District 12.”

Roy goes frigid. It’s a lot to process at once, but he addresses each statement in turn.

“Edward Elric was unconscious during the annihilation of 12,” Roy says. “He’d been rescued from the arena after destroying it. When he came to and found you’d been captured, he broke down. He had no knowledge of any of it.”

Winry accepts this with wide, disbelieving eyes. She opens her mouth to speak, but Roy continues, cutting her off.

“I don’t know how he feels.” It’s a lie, but it isn’t Roy’s place to reveal something like that either. “Whether the love was real or fake. What I _do_ know is that he kept you alive. Keeping you alive was his priority. It continues to be, even today.

“Lastly,” Roy says, and as the words leave him, so does all of Winry’s resistance. She slumps forward, crying into her shoulder.  “He was not reaped. Alphonse Elric was. Ed volunteered to go in his place. To save his life.”

She looks over Roy, to the sleeping kid on the armchair. He squeezes the edge of a cushion with a white knuckled grip. His breathing is somewhat erratic, like he’s in the middle of a nightmare.

Winry looks away, closing her eyes. She nods and whispers, “Okay.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one was written in response to a drabble prompt on Tumblr: “You need to wake up because I can’t do this without you.” 
> 
> This would take place during the Quarter Quell. Book 2 in the Hunger Games timeline. Prior to the rest of the drabbles in this chronology.
> 
> (For non-HG fans: Every 25 years, the Hunger Games is called a Quarter Quell, wherein, the reaping is done in a special way. In Catching Fire, the third Quarter Quell's rules stated that year's tributes would be reaped from the existing pool of victors. Katniss and Peeta were both placed back into the arena for the second time. Likewise, Ed and Winry met the same fate in this AU. And the following scene is essentially just a role-reversed scene from Catching Fire.) I hope you enjoy <3

“How much farther until we reach the edge of the arena?” Winry asks.

She walks toward the front, awkwardly gripping the hilt of a sword that looks unbalanced in her hand. Its black blade forms a wicked curve that Ed shudders to imagine Winry ever having to wield for attack.

“Not sure,” says Roy. His damp bangs stick to his forehead, either from the ocean water, sweat, or both. He exhaustedly combs his hair back. “But it feels like we’ve been moving for days.”

If not for the long sleeves of his wetsuit, Ed would likely be feeling the blistering heat at the joints where his metal limbs meet his skin. Even so, his leg grows stiffer the longer they trudge through the jungle. He’s desperate for a break, though he’ll never admit it out loud.

“Stop your whining, Roy-boy,” Christmas says in her husky voice. Though, Ed can definitely see that she’s withering, herself. How much longer will she possibly last?

Ed still cannot wrap his mind around why she’d volunteered in place of District 4’s female tribute. Surely it wasn’t because she had a better shot at winning. If anything the notorious Hawk’s Eye would have been a goldmine for sponsors, given the legacy she left behind.

He remembers what Winry said during training, as they noticed Christmas watching Roy spar, and Ed had pondered the very thing out loud. Winry leaned against Ed with a sad and tired sigh.

“Why did you volunteer for Al?” she asked, then shrugged. “It wasn’t for victory. It was a sacrifice for love.”

“Just a little longer,” Ed finally says to his allies. _Allies_. The word still feels odd to him. He and Winry were supposed to do this on their own.

Now…that may have been compromised.

“Then we can rest,” Winry agrees. She lifts her sword to slice through the branches blocking their path. The moment they collide with her blade, Ed’s vision is obscured with blinding white sparks. Winry is tossed backwards, tumbling to the ground in a heap.

Without thinking, Ed shoves through Roy and Christmas and falls to his knees. His heart leaps into his throat as he grabs her by the shoulders and turns her onto her back. He frantically brings his face close to hers and panic seizes his chest.

“She’s not breathing!” Ed chokes out. He grips her shoulders, giving her a hard shake. “Winry. Hey, Winry!” He brings two fingers to her neck, checking for a pulse, but then he feels someone grip his arm, yanking him to his feet. When he looks up, he see’s that it’s Christmas.

“Hey!” Ed screams, ripping away, only for her to restrain him in an even stronger hold.

“Relax, boy!” she snaps, then jerks Ed’s body so that he’s facing Winry. Roy is hunched over her, pressing the heels of his palms into the center of her chest.

What the hell?

“Bastard!” Ed jerks around. “Get away from her!”

“He’s trying to save her, idiot!” Christmas hisses into his ear. And now, Ed is able to recognize the technique as CPR.

Of course.

District 4. The fishing district. Where people likely face the possibility of drowning all the time.

Of course Roy would know CPR.

Ed slumps in her hold, his eyes desperately searching Winry’s face for any sign of consciousness. Her chest inflates with air when Roy breathes into her mouth, but remains still when he pulls away.

“Please,” Ed whispers, tears springing to his eyes. He swallows a knot in his throat. “Save her, please.”

Finally, Christmas lets him go, and Ed falls beside her, grabbing her limp hand, lacing their fingers as Roy continues pumping her chest.

“Winry, come on,” Ed says, fixing his gaze on her unresponsive face. “You need to wake up.” He squeezes her hand and brings his forehead down to rest against her knuckles. They’re still warm. “You need to wake up because…” _because I need to keep you alive. Because it’s my turn to protect you. Because you’ve given me everything and asked for nothing in return. Because you don’t deserve to die here. Because I can’t_ let _you die here._

_Because I can’t do this without you._

Winry’s fingers twitch against Ed’s. He jerks his head up, blood pulsing through his ears. Is she alive? Did she make it?

Roy sits back on his heels, taking a deep breath, intently watching her. And then, her eyes open and she gasps.

“Winry!” Before Ed realizes he’s even moved, he has Winry in his arms, hugging her to him, burying his face into her shoulder. He blinks back the tears that have pooled in his eyes, but some manage to escape. He doesn’t care. Cameras watch his every move, broadcasting it to all of Panem, and Ed cannot even bother to be embarrassed by their proximity.

_She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive._

They inch apart and Winry strokes his face, bringing her forehead to rest against his. They are so close that her chest swells against his when she breathes.

“It’s okay,” she whispers shakily, rubbing her thumb back and forth over his cheek. “I’m here, Ed. We’re okay.”

Ed nods, tightening his arms around her, screwing his eyes closed. He makes a vow, here and now. He will never allow this to happen again. He’s through being distracted, wary, and a piece in the Capitol’s sick game of fear and manipulation.

No, he won’t lose focus. He will protect Winry with his life. If there can only be one victor of the third Quarter Quell, it will be her.


	4. Grayscale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one would take place at the *end* as it’s set around the end of the Mockingjay timeline. This one hurt so much to write. I felt empty when it was finished. ;___;
> 
> *Must add a warning for MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHSSSSS*  
> (If you’re a THG fan and know what happens in that story, I think you know what’s coming here ;__;)

Ed always assumed District 12 would be foreign to him once he returned and was no longer the Mockingjay. But when he steps off the hovercraft and onto the debris-riddled streets of the Seam, everything is all too familiar.

It isn’t because anything looks as it did before his departure; in fact, the ruins of his home offer nothing tangible that can anchor this version of himself to whoever he’d been before the Reaping.

As he finds his way to the victor’s village, all he can make out from his surroundings are blurs of gray. His neighbor’s shack, the local schoolhouse, the Hob he walked through every single day, as easily and frequently as he breathes, are memories from a past life. And they’ve manifested into this one in the form of broken glass, ashen wood, and the rancid stench of death clinging to the air, threatening to choke Ed as long as he stays here.

No, District 12 isn’t familiar because anything is reminiscent of home. It’s familiar because it’s broken. Not even a shell of what it once was. It’s been cracked, beaten, and bent into something unrecognizable. It isn’t strange to Ed because it never left him behind. Instead, he caught up with it. His home is different, but so is he.

He steps under the wrought-iron arch at the entrance of the victor’s village. Funny how this is the only piece of the district still intact. Almost as if the archway acts as a portal to a place where time doesn’t exist. In all the time Ed lived here, nothing felt real. Even before the Quell.

The door to his home is unlocked when he enters. Everything is exactly how it was left the morning of the Quell Reaping. His father’s textbooks and journals are strewn across the tabletop. The herbs from Al’s medical studies have dried and withered within the jars that line the dining room shelf. Ed’s favorite red coat hangs on a rack to his left.

He drags his feet across the dusty wooden floor and collapses onto an armchair. It smells of must and neglect, dust motes springing into the air, drifting along the streaks of light that poke through the cracks in his blinds.

Without bothering to remove his boots, Ed draws his legs up, curling up with his knees to his chest, and allows the silence to settle over him. This is the victor’s village. This is where you go when the fighting is over. Where you’re to live in peace.

Where time doesn’t exist.

He closes his eyes. The others should have returned by now as well. Maybe someone will come inside, stir the quiet. Izumi to make sure he’s eating. Hohenheim to pore over his books. Alphonse with another stray cat that he’ll beg Ed to let them keep.

Predictably, the door opens sometime later, but Ed doesn’t look to see who it is. Their delicate footsteps grow closer, and only when they stop does Ed open his eyes.

It isn’t Izumi, or his father or brother. Ed’s heart constricts in his chest. He’s faced with the realization that of course Winry would be the one to check on him. Who else but the one person that’s possibly as broken as he is?

“I wanted to make sure you were alright,” Winry says quietly. She looks down at her hands. For once, they’re not shaking.

“Where’s Izumi?” Ed asks in place of an answer. He fixes his eyes on her long fingers. The ones that made him an arm and a leg back when he’d been destitute. The ones that clutched the IV needle she aimed at his throat. The hands that caressed his face right before a kiss.

“With Sig,” Winry replies. “Heading back. They stopped to make a call to 13.”

Ed doesn’t remember very much from their brief stop in District 13. He’d spent majority of the time in the hovercraft, waiting to depart again. As the Mockingjay, maybe he should have been the one in charge of damage control. But right about now, he isn’t sure he was ever cut out for such a responsibility in the first place.

“How was it?” Ed asks vacantly. “While you were in 13.”

Winry exhales a long breath. She doesn’t move from her position, not even to sit down on the adjacent sofa. She shifts anxiously in place.

“I…” Her voice rises by an octave. “I told Riza.”

Ed’s eyes flicker up, his heart jostling. Tears swim in Winry’s eyes, and she quickly blinks them back.

Like a punch in the stomach, Roy’s mangled screaming echoes through Ed’s head, as if he is in that sewer at this very moment, watching him die.

He shuts his eyes, gruffly asking, “Is she alright?”

The memory of Roy calmly talking Riza through a panic attack in 13 compound’s corridor returns to him. The way he’d pantomimed motions that she mirrored while they breathed together.

 _Follow me_ , he’d told her. _Like always_.

Afterward, he remembers the determined look in her eyes when she promised she wouldn’t let the Capitol take him away again. That they’d protect each other no matter what.

He wonders if she, without any real reason to, sees his blood on her hands.

“I’m not sure,” Winry admits. She shrugs, her frown deepening. “She looked really…stunned. Almost like she didn’t believe me. She didn’t cry like I’d expected her to. Only stared at me.” Winry crosses her arms over her chest. “I almost wish she’d broken down. It would have been less scary.”

Ed doesn’t respond to that. He doesn’t know how to. Riza Hawkeye will always be broken in ways Ed doesn’t understand. In ways perhaps only Roy Mustang ever could. And he doesn’t have the energy or emotional capacity to be concerned with it. At least not now.

“What about Hohenheim?” Ed asks, changing the subject.

Winry blinks, a tear escaping her eye in the motion. She quickly wipes it away and stammers, “Um, right. He should be on his way. He stayed behind to sort some things out. I think to learn more about what happened to…” She trails off, her eyes glossing over before she finds her focus on Ed once again. She looks apologetic.

No, that isn’t it. It’s something deeper. More personal.

“Whatever,” Ed mutters, waving his hand. “Good for nothing father. He can stay in 13 for all I care.”

“He’s not leaving you,” Winry says. It almost sounds like a promise.

“And Al?” Ed asks, as if she hadn’t spoken.

Winry reels back. She shakes her head, maybe thinking she misheard. “What?”

“Alphonse,” Ed clarifies. The hollowness he’d felt upon disembarking today seems to spread throughout his body. A wave of dizziness washes over him, pulling him under its heavy current. “My brother. Where is he?”

Winry takes a tentative step forward. Now, her hands begin to tremble, and a faraway part of Ed has the blissful ignorance to wonder why.

“Ed,” she says slowly. “Al isn’t here.”

Ed lets out a humorless chuckle that seems to strike Winry. She cries openly, unable to stop the flow of tears once it begins.

“I want to see my brother,” Ed tries again. Why won’t Winry look at him?

“Ed, please.” She brings a hand to her mouth, swallowing a sob. Suddenly, Ed can read the emotion he’d been unable to discern a moment ago. Not apologetic, but more visceral.

Grief.

“Al,” says Ed. He brings his feet to rest on the floor. When he stands, the weight dissolves from his body. His head throbs and spins all at once. As if the timelessness of this place have begun to catch up with him, rendering him into something not fully formed. Unreal.

“Let me talk to Al,” Ed says, starting forward. He takes Winry by the wrist, his metal fingers tightening on her skin. She gasps, but doesn’t pull away.

“Ed, I can’t,” she croaks. She squeezes her eyes shut, a sob breaking free from her chest. “You know…you know Al isn’t here.”

He drops her arm none too gently. A spike of fury tears through the knot that’s formed in his throat. He exhales sharply, and that anger flares in his center, not necessarily filling the hollowness, but warping it into something he can at the very least find meaning in.

“What are you saying?” Ed demands. Winry flinches at the venom in his voice. “Winry, _where is Alphonse_?”

“You know where he is, Ed!” Winry cries, finally backing away. The physical distance between them does nothing to ease how suffocating the air has grown. “Don’t make me say it!”

“God _dammit_!” Ed kicks the armchair with all his might and its legs rake against the floor until it falls over with a splintering crash. He steps forward and Winry stumbles back into a wall. “Will you stop crying and tell me where the hell my brother is? Let me see him!” He grips her by the arms. “Winry, _look_ at me!”

So she does, and at that moment, the realization floods Ed’s body like water through a broken dam. In that look, she tells him everything. That she’s sorry. That she’d give anything to change this. That she loves Al too.

Ed’s grip loosens on Winry’s arms, and she stays frozen. The wrinkles on her sleeves from Ed’s tight fingers don’t even smooth over. She watches him through her tears, and his eyes fix nowhere but on hers.

In this purgatorial village, she is the only thing that’s real. The moment he loses grip of her, he’ll be lost, joining the ashes on the street, scattered by the wind.

He stumbles back, but loses his footing and then he’s on the floor with an aching tailbone. From his peripheral, he once again sees the jars from Al’s healing studies.

Because Al was studying to be a doctor.

That’s why he was in the Capitol that day. He was there to care for the injured.

Ed blinks, his vision blurring.

Al isn’t here because when the bombs were dropped, he was caught in the explosion. Al isn’t coming back because his body was found in the wreckage.

But, no. That can’t possibly be true. It was just the other week when the two of them were eating stew in 13’s mess hall. At that moment, all Ed could think of was how old his little brother had gotten. No longer the prodigal boy, enamored by science textbooks much too complicated for someone his age, but a practicing medic whose legs had grown so long his feet hung over the edge of his bed when he slept.

He was never someone who needed protection, but it didn’t stop Ed from volunteering as tribute when Al’s name was called at the Reaping. He remembers how he had yelled in protest, rushing toward his older brother before Peacekeepers pushed him back.

Ed didn’t do it because Al wasn’t strong enough. He did it because _he_ wasn’t strong enough to face a world without him. He was as good as the heart beating in Ed’s chest. What else would he fight for, if not for him?

Whether he died or came home a victor, Al would have suffered. And since the death of their mother, Ed promised his brother would never have to suffer again. Ed knew Al was too gentle to become a killer. Even in the end, he’d died saving perfect strangers. The arena was no place for someone like that.

But still.

He’s gone.

But still.

Ed couldn’t save him.

But still.

Al suffered.

And now Ed understands why the district was void of color upon his return. This is the world without Alphonse Elric. This is the new reality he must face.

A timeless purgatory doesn’t seem so appealing anymore. It’s a trap that stretches for miles with nothing in the clearing. An endless field on which Ed will run for the rest of his life as certainties become memories and memories are carried through the air like dust. One day, he’ll forget what Al’s voice sounds like–the nuances and inflections of his speech. When he imagines him saying ‘Brother’ it won’t sound quite right. Over time, he’ll stop running because maybe he’ll grow tired. And maybe, one day, this isn’t going to hurt anymore. Alphonse, the most vital piece of Ed’s life and being, will be a memory and he will be able to keep living as if he’s alright with that.

Ed keels over; he thinks he’s going to throw up. But he hasn’t eaten in days, so all he does is dry heave, choking on air, feeling so unbearably light.

He thinks Winry moves because somehow, he’s able to hear footsteps through the bubble that has sealed him off from the rest of the world. His stomach plunges as if he’s falling, his fingertips going numb, a relentless pressure crushing his lungs to his chest.

He inhales only to cough wildly into his arm until he’s fallen forward, digging his face into the forearm that lies flat against the floor. He can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t breathe and when he opens his mouth to scream he only gags on his dry throat and suddenly there are arms around him and suddenly he’s being hoisted into a sitting position and then there’s a body pressed to his back and a face pressed to the curve of his neck and together, they weep.

* * *

Ed doesn’t know how long he and Winry stay like that. Her hugging him, the two of them on the floor. But when they finally pull apart, the sun outside the window has gone down, leaving them in darkness. Winry is the one to stand up and flick on a light. That is when Ed is able to survey the damage. The armchair lies on its side with two violent scratches marking its journey over the wooden floor.

“I’m sorry,” Ed tells her, sniffing.

Winry looks questioningly at him, wiping her own eyes with the back of her hand. Though they’ve calmed down some, he doesn’t see the crying coming to a complete end anytime soon.

“I yelled at you,” Ed clarifies. “And I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that.” He shoves the heel of his flesh hand into his eye socket, biting back more tears.

Winry joins him again on the floor. She gently takes him by the wrists and pulls his arms away from his face. When he looks at her, Winry cracks a watery smile.

“I’m…trying to understand all of this,” she says softly. “What Al meant to me before.” She doesn’t have to explain what _before_ means. The knowledge of her hijacking rests in the back of Ed’s mind. Even though she’s mostly come back to herself on the outside, he knows Winry is never going to be the same.

“You guys were good friends,” says Ed. Speaking in past tense leaves a horrible ache in his stomach.

“I know that,” she says. “But I just want you to know that even if I get lost or even…not myself…I’m going to be here.”

_What else would I fight for, if not for him?_

Ed takes a deep breath. He looks into Winry’s eyes, and the solace he found moments ago envelops him once more. It isn’t the same as the guidance he and Al found in each other, but it isn’t any less important. What Winry offers is comforting in a way that is unique to her. In her eyes, he finds safety, and love, and profound understanding. Since the arena, they share more than a worthless victor’s crown. They share an outlook on the world. They share dreams of a better tomorrow. They share nightmares of a horrifying past. They share irrefutable truths only known by people faced with the choice of dying together at the hands of a nightlock berry or living alone–and the berry’s sour taste on both their tongues right before the gamemakers stopped them from swallowing.

Ed leans forward, resting his head on Winry’s shoulder. She slides her fingers into his hair. His arms circle her waist.

“I don’t want to forget him,” Ed chokes out.

Winry runs her fingers through his long hair, that had by now completely escaped from its braid. “So we won’t.”

“I’m afraid,” he admits.

“I know.”

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You can. We will.”

Ed’s face crumples. He breaks apart in a fit of sobbing that racks his body to its core. Winry holds him steady, continuing to stroke his hair, pressing her cheek to the side of his head.

“Thank you,” he whimpers. His arms tighten around her and his nose digs into the space between her neck and shoulder.

He isn’t certain what he’s thanking her for. Whether it’s her being here at this moment, her saving his life before they really knew each other, or every moment they’ve protected each other since. All he knows is that he’s grateful that the same life capable of gutting him of everything he’s ever known and believed in could have given him something so beautiful too. He loves Winry Rockbell. He’s loved her for a long time, even if he himself didn’t quite know it.

Though things will never be the same, and Ed doesn’t fully know how to be himself without Alphonse, he also knows it isn’t over yet. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, he still hasn’t decided. But he’ll face it because he has to. Because Al would have wanted him to.

For now, he’ll try to convince himself that it’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The part about Roy and Riza in 13′s corridor is a scene I actually have written, but it was a 4AM drabble that I would really love to polish up a bit before I post. I actually have a few HG AU scenes with Roy and Riza that I think need a bit of work ;-;
> 
> I hope it wasn’t too ooc? I’d assume Ed would be very not-himself if he ever lost Al, but I hope I didn’t stretch him too far. 
> 
> AHHHH. I hope you thought it worth your time! kjsghdfkjghsdgkjhgkljshgksjgh
> 
> Also, sorry for killing Roy in, like, one sentence. I’d love to write his AU death scene in full at some point as well ;;


	5. Bodyguard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence, blood, ptsd, and mentions of suicide ahead. As a warning ;-;  
> (Also, this one takes place between the first and third installment, so right before Roy leaves with Ed, Winry, and the others)

Raindrops slice through Riza Hawkeye’s skin like shards of glass. She breaks into an ungainly run, then tumbles to her knees. For the first time, she’s aware of the searing pain in her abdomen. She has half the mind to look down.

A knife is buried into her stomach. When she raises her trembling hands to her eyes, they’re covered in blood. Is it hers? Is it hers, or is it someone else’s? And why is the rainwater not washing it away? Each drop on her palms burns her, opening blistering wounds all over her skin.

“Ladies and gentleman!” a disembodied voice echoes through the forest. “The victor of the 64th Hunger Games. Riza Hawkeye, of District 4!”

Her fingers close around the hilt of her knife. With a violent twist, she drives it into herself. Her scream tears through the forest. And yet, somehow the aching of her throat and agony in her center does nothing to quell the suffering. She twists the knife again and again, like she’s turning a crank. The fabric of her shirt knots around the hilt, pulling her collar halfway down her chest.

Blood pools around the crescents of her fingernails and travels up her arms. It creeps over her neck, dripping into her mouth, choking her in the midst of a scream. The coppery taste burns her tongue. And although everything inside of her wants to surrender to it and the flames of Hell that await her, instinct draws her hands away from the knife and to her throat where she claws at it, desperate to breathe again.

Her vision, once blurred by tears, is now curtained in red. She keels over, screaming as the memory of her arrow sinking into the final tribute’s chest replays over and over and over again.

She doesn’t know which district he was from.

She doesn’t even know his name.

“I’m sorry,” she manages through a heave that burns her chest.

She’s pulled under by a buzzing wave of darkness that spills in through her ears and numbs her head. Panic ripples through her chest. Everything hurts, from the dull throbbing of her fingertips to the fire searing her impotent lungs.

_IcantbreatheIcantbreatheIcant_

She gasps, dragging the fingernails of one hand down her throat while the other finds purchase on the bloodsoaked dirt. She sinks beneath the darkness’s swelling current, like she’s strangled by chains that pull her under. She opens her mouth to cry out, instead she finds herself choking.

“I…” Riza coughs blood out of her lungs, the pain nearly blinding her. She buckles under her own weight, scraping her elbows against the ground. A sob builds in her chest, but it drowns in the blood that surges up her throat. It dribbles down her chin, then dispels through a retch.

“So…rry,” she forces out between ravaging coughs. A whimper escapes her. “I’m…sorry.”

She grips the handle of her knife, choking the words out again and again. Until the words no longer sound like words and blur in her mind like every tribute turned corpse by her hand. Children who died with the arena’s rancid air etched to their senses. Whose very last memory of this world was Riza’s empty eyes and the arrow she used to take their life.

All children.

Children her age.

Some younger than her.

Children she didn’t know. Names reduced to numbers reduced to a countdown of seconds between that moment and her impending freedom.

Children she killed to stay alive.

How could she have ever been so arrogant? To think of all of them, she was the one who deserved to go home?

Riza screams until she has no voice. She bleeds on the forest floor, asking why, after all of this, after everything she’s done, it’s taking her so long to die?

* * *

When she opens her eyes, the world is black. She’s choked by a panic that starts in the back of her throat and travels down to her chest.

_The light the light the light the light it’s so dark where are the lights where are the lights where–_

She scrubs her eyes with shaking fists, as if tearing through this darkness can somehow restore whatever light lies beyond it. Her eyelids ache, and then they burn. She claws at her cheeks in her haste. Suddenly she feels the rain slipping back over her face, following the stinging trail left by her fingernails.

Riza bites her wrist as a scream works its way into her throat, but she sinks her teeth deeper, tasting blood.

_It’s still raining. I’m still bleeding. I’m back in there. They told me I wouldn’t have to go back. Oh my god I killed him. My arrow. I killed him. I shot him. I shot them all. I killed them._

Her fingers wind through her sweat-matted hair, pulling as hard as she can.

 _It doesn’t hurt enough_.

She sniffs, then breaks into a sob. She curls up, bringing her knees to her chest. Warm bedsheets slip against her bare feet.

 _Bedsheets_.

She squeezes her eyes shut, bowing her head into her knees. Her lips are tickled by the fibers of the blanket draped over her knees. It smells like her, but it smells like something else too. A rich smokiness she feels comfortable in. She allows it to envelop her, its tendrils curling through the air, circling her like a pair of arms.

It smells like the aftershock of a nightmare. Like the only thing that knows how to peel back the darkness, bringing her into the light.

It’s pain and sacrifice.

It’s love and home.

She breathes it in, she exhales the dread.

She breathes it in, and it chases away the fear.

She breathes it in, and she feels safe.

The rain dissolves into quiet. All that remains is the stinging on her cheeks, the tears in her eyes, the coppery taste in her mouth, the knots in her stomach, and a pain flaring beneath the bloody teeth marks on her wrist.

Her eyes adjust to the darkness and, like it always does, the nightmare folds back into a memory. She takes a quivering breath and slips her hand underneath her shirt. The scar from the knife wound remains, but that’s all it is. A scar.

She screws her eyes closed, swallowing the knot in her throat.

Of course it’s only a scar. Because when the hovercraft lifted her out of the arena, she was given immediate medical attention. She was saved by the Capitol. Because there was no Hunger Games without a victor.

After that, she’d been monitored every night lest she ever try to end her life again. At least until Christmas’s silver tongue worked in her favor. Riza will never have the words to thank her for that. Her autonomy, as delicate as it may be, is all Riza has left.

Riza’s nightmares vary, but the worst is always this one. Because unlike many of the others, this one is all too real. Even if it didn’t plague her in sleep, she could never forget it.

Because it isn’t just a nightmare, it’s a memory too.

With regular variance, of course. In the past, it’s been worse.

She’s at the very least grateful that one recurring alteration didn’t make an appearance tonight. The one where her Game-winning arrow pierces Roy’s chest.

She brings her knees down, the covers landing in a heap on her lap. A chill passes over her, cooling the sweat that wets her hairline.

She casts a glance to her right, where Roy would be asleep. His side of the bed is empty. She could have figured he was gone, by the way she dragged herself out of the nightmare on her own. Roy isn’t a particularly light sleeper, but since the arena, Riza has made a habit of thrashing in her sleep. It’s how he’s always able to bring her back when the memories threaten to take her away.

She moves her heavy legs over the side of the bed. Goosebumps raise on her arms when her bare feet make contact with the cool tile floor.

 _You’re safe_ , she tells herself, closing her eyes. _It’s all right._

Riza stands up, fighting through a bout of dizziness that pulls over her head, and pads out of the room. She steps into the dimly lit corridor, following its path until she reaches the stairwell.

Roy sits on the bottom step, anxiously flipping the lid of his silver lighter forward and back. When he hears Riza approaching, his eyes lift, and then he’s on his feet.

“You followed me,” he says, his voice rough from sleep.

Riza stops in front of him, placing her hand over the one he uses to hold the lighter. His knuckles are ice cold.

“I’ll always follow you,” Riza says simply. To anyone else, there may have been nothing out of the ordinary. But Roy Mustang isn’t anyone else.

He studies her eyes, and she tightens her fingers over his hand. Roy reaches out with his other, lightly tracing the raw scratches on her cheek.

“You had that dream again.” He doesn’t ask it and Riza’s wordless response makes him swear under his breath.

“It’s all right,” she says.

“I’m sorry.” He shakes his head, remorsefully averting his eyes. “I shouldn’t have gone any–”

“It’s all right,” she repeats. Their eyes meet, and she tells him everything she has never needed words for. That it’s going to be okay. That the worst is technically over even if it will live inside of her for as long as she is breathing. That it’s her burden to bear but she’s willing to shoulder it because there’s still so much left to be done.

He lowers his hand, and hers falls back to her side. He sighs, pushing his hair back from his forehead. It’s grown quite long since the Quell, and his cheekbones jut out more. He’s lost a significant amount of weight.

She crosses her arms, feeling her own bony elbows, noting the way her pants hang low on her waist. Neither of them can eat very much these days.

“I’m set to leave tomorrow morning,” he says, but it isn’t to remind her. Every second closer to his departure seems to settle heavily on her chest. She couldn’t forget if she wanted to.

Roy laughs humorlessly. “I should be in bed, holding my wife. Savoring these moments. But…”

“But you’re here,” Riza says with the casual surety she’d announce the time of day. “Because you’re not the kind of person to fret the small things. And besides,” she adds, a smile quirking the side of her mouth. “You don’t need to hold me to say you love me.”

“I should hold you more,” he says with guilt. “I’m realizing every second how quickly time goes by.”

“That’s a sign that you have things to live for,” says Riza. Roy’s eyes flash with pain, but she goes on, nodding slightly. “While I was in the arena, time didn’t seem to exist. I was a victor in less than a week, but by the time I was home, it felt as if I’d given a lifetime to that Game.” In a way, she did. The person she was before the Reaping and the person she is now are so incongruent they may as well be separate people altogether.

“But,” she says, drawing his gaze into hers. He swallows, and that look alone is more intimate than any physical reassurance could ever be. “When I fell in love with you, time restarted. It was like breathing after being held underwater. For the first time since the Reaping, there was someone I needed to protect. I let that guide me through each passing day. It still does today. It will for as long as we’re alive.

“Time moves far too quickly when you’re happy,” she says. “But rather than lamenting that, I’d like to just be grateful for a life that allows me to want more time with the people I love. Instead of a static life I don’t see meaning in.”

“Riza,” he whispers, wrapping an arm around her waist, drawing her in. He rests his forehead against hers, breathing over her lips.

She clutches the sleeve of his shirt. She cannot comprehend how in such an enclosed space, she is able to breathe the most easily.

“Maybe.” His voice is husky. He chuckles a bit. “Maybe I’ll be so happy when I think of you that I’ll be home before we know it.”

She brings her arm up and curls her fingers through his hair. “Maybe.”

Riza can’t help but think that still isn’t enough. It isn’t the forthcoming time apart that carves into her gut, after all. It’s the obvious fear of her world coming to a standstill once again.

She inches closer to his mouth. Their lips barely brush together. Her eyes screw closed. “Please let me go with you.”

He pulls back immediately, but his arm doesn’t fall away from where it wraps around her. Riza feels her heart beginning to pound. She knows this is delicate territory. It’s a fight she’s lost time and time again.

“I can’t.” He clenches his free fist. “I can’t let you do that.”

“How can I protect you?” she asks with unexpected sharpness. She hadn’t meant to, but with only hours standing between this moment and his departure, she’s grown impatient. “How can I put your life in anyone else’s–”

“Listen to me,” he says, but her pulse is already racing.

She feels sweat clamming her near-shaking hands. She extricates herself from him and paces to the other end of the corridor.

Roy looks down at the lighter in his hand, like he’s prepared to fiddle with it some more. However he quickly thinks better of it and pockets it.

“You protect me every day,” he says. “And that isn’t going to change just because we’re apart.”  

Her eyes snap to his, but it’s difficult to focus. Blackness edges her vision and the oxygen in the corridor seems to be thinning. She closes her eyes and inhales. Her head spins. She takes a hold of the wall to keep herself steady.

 _Not now_ , she thinks, wanting to tear the panic from her chest like it’s as tangible as her beating heart. _God,_ not _now_.

“Riza,” Roy says, quickly reaching for her. She swats him away, staring at him with wild, unfocused eyes. The image of him undulates before her, like a reflection in the water, broken by raindrops.

“S-stop,” she forces out.

 _Breathe_ , she tells herself, pressing her hand to her chest. _Slow breaths. In. Out. In. Out._

She opens her eyes again, Roy’s face swimming back into view. He’s white with fear, or maybe that’s just how the lost look in his eyes makes him seem to her. She’s always been able to read him better than a mirror.

“I’m…alright,” she says slowly. Still trembling, she presses her back against the wall and slides down to the floor. Roy follows, sitting mere inches away. The rise and fall of her chest is sporadic; her breathing has yet to steady.

“I’m coming home,” he tells her. He takes one of her hands. It’s gone pins and needles numb. As he often does during moments like this, he massages her hand until the warmth and life return to it, then begins on her other. Her focus fixates on the motion until he tells her to look at him. She does, and the certainty in his eyes is her personal safety. “I promise I will make it home to you.”

Tears fill her eyes, but she blinks them away. She refuses to cry, though her brittle voice betrays her. Not like it matters. It isn’t like she can hide anything from him anyway.

“Why won’t you let me watch your back?” she whispers. 

He delivers somewhat of a sad smile. “Because I can’t afford to lose you.”

Roy pulls one of his hands away to rummage through his pocket. He brings out his lighter and presses it into her palm. Riza’s fingers curl around it.

“You know I can’t live without this,” he says. “You may as well be holding my heart. So keep it safe.”

“The lighter or your heart?” she asks, smiling despite herself.

“The lighter, obviously,” he says, squeezing her hand. “After all, you’ve kept my heart safe for as long as I’ve known you. You’re quite the bodyguard.”

Riza chuckles, which brings forth the tears she’d been holding back. She tightens her fingers around the lighter and nods.

“Well, if it’s as good as your heart,” she croaks, “what kind of bodyguard would I be if I let any harm come to it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you’ve been keeping up with the others as well, the role reversal with Roy and Riza is Finnick and Annie in the original series. (Though with some tweaks to fit the characters a little better.) And ahh, I hope you dig this and that it was okay with you and not poorly dealt with. We hadn’t gotten to write much of Riza in this AU yet since it’s Ed centered, for the most part. Eep. ;;
> 
> Kayla read through this and helped me make it somewhat coherent. I love her skjghskjhgksjdhs.


	6. Jabberjays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This one is essentially somewhat of a re-telling of the jabberjay scene from Catching Fire (with some slight divergences). For those not familiar with the Hunger Games canon, the characters are currently in the third Quarter Quell, wherein the tributes for the Games were reaped from the existing pool of victors. (So not everyone is between 12 and 18). Ed and Winry are from District 12, Roy and Christmas from District 4, and Maria from 7. Hope you dig it <3

Everything about the arena is so much denser to Ed. Grief hangs in the air, molding around his body as if it’s trying to keep him in place. Every step forward, he wrestles through it, but it doesn’t get any easier. It only exhausts him.

Winry’s hand brushes his as they walk, but neither of them speaks. Right now, all of their mental and physical focus is concentrated on moving forward. Making it just one more hour so that they can strive for another hour after that. That’s all there is.

The one to suggest a break is Maria who presses her back to a tree, draping her forearm across her eyes. No one objects. Perhaps they all lack the energy to.

“Are you alright?”

Ed’s attention flickers to Winry. She watches Roy with furrowed eyebrows as he absently scrapes dried blood away from his neck with his fingernail. He sighs, letting his hands drop to his sides. They’ve long stopped shaking, but his knuckles have paled from how hard he’d been gripping the hilt of his sword that now lies against the tree beside Maria.

“She…” Roy swallows, and then his voice steadies. “She knew this was one way. I’d resigned to it the moment she volunteered.”

Chris Mustang had been one of the most esteemed Career victors back when she’d won at age seventeen. But her experience, charm, refusal to be taken for a fool, and compassion beneath it all meant nothing to the fog that swallowed her. At that moment, she was no longer a Career, nor a victor. She was a tribute. And the arena was nothing if not a graveyard for tributes.

“It’s okay,” Winry says softly. “If you want to–”

“I’m fine,” Roy says, not harshly, but resolutely. And with that, the conversation is over.

Ed’s vision crosses as he stares onward. Rich sunlight blurs behind the strokes of pink clouds painting the sky. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he ponders the possibility of this being the very last sunset he ever sees. It’s rather unsatisfactory. For all the death he’s seen today alone, the gold light bleeding out from behind the clouds may as well be blood itself. This place isn’t anything but a carefully constructed Hell. Why delude himself into thinking otherwise, even if for a moment?

“Is this it, then?” Maria asks. Her temple rests against the bark. Her eyelids flutter closed. “Are we calling it for the day?”

A visible shiver courses through Winry. She hugs her arms and nods. “I think so.” She looks to Roy. He shrugs.

“Okay,” he says.

“Yeah,” Ed agrees. “That sounds good.”

They lapse into silence. Maria tilts her head back, slowly sliding down the tree trunk and to the ground. Roy stands in place, clasping his hands, wringing them out. Winry and Ed find each other’s eyes. The tension in Ed’s chest melts away like ice that only her familiarity could bring warmth to. It’s easy for him to remember why he’s still fighting when she’s by his side. Whenever he’s ready to surrender to the arena’s dense gravity, she keeps him upright.

He doesn’t deserve her. For all the things he’s done since Al’s name was called at that first reaping, he wonders if he was always condemned to the fate he’s written himself here. To die so she can go home a victor.

It isn’t fair. But this game never was.

Neither of them avert their eyes. And then a scream tears through their ears. Maria is on her feet at once. Roy grabs his sword, poising it for attack.

Panic steals the breath from Ed’s lungs. He’s left paralyzed, gaping hopelessly at nothing. That voice…

And then it returns, crying out a single word. “Brother!”

“Al,” Ed whispers, horror flooding his hollowed stomach.

His body reacts before his mind does. He lunges forward, but he doesn’t get farther than a few steps. His vision swims in and out through a wave of dizziness that falls over him. His feet make contact with the ground, and then he’s wrenched back by a pair of arms that circle his chest.

“Let me go!” Ed shouts. His eyes fade to focus. Roy and Winry appear, both too stunned to move. It’s when he’s just barely able to process that Maria is the one who holds him back. He writhes in her arms. “I don’t care who you are, I’ll knock you out!”

“Edward, _don’t_!” Maria says. “You don’t know–”

“B-b-brother, are you there?” Alphonse’s disembodied voice is mangled by terror. “Ed! Ed, I–” He’s cut off by a scream that drives into Ed’s chest like a knife.

Ed shoves his metal arm back and it connects with Maria’s side. She releases him with a gasp. He stumbles forward, and scrambles into a sprint, following his little brother’s voice.

“ _BROTHER_!”

“Alphonse!” Ed yells as he runs. How is he able to hear a thing over the blood pulsing through his ears? His feet pound against the dirt. The surrounding trees have blurred into indiscernible lines of brown and green. “I’m here, Al!”

His breaths come out short and every muscle in his body is loose from fatigue, but he doesn’t slow. He’s stricken by the memory of Al as a toddler waddling up to Ed’s bedside, dragging his pillow by the corner enclosed in his tiny fist. He’d nudged Ed awake and whispered about nightmares keeping him up.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Ed sighed right before making a space for him to climb into his bed. Al curled up beside him and the two fell asleep like puppies. Because with Ed, Al felt safe. Nothing, not even his nightmares, could touch him so long as his big brother was there to protect him.

“Brother, please!” Al sobs.

“I’m coming!” Ed screams, shoving a branch out of his way. He trips over a tree root and cracks his jaw against the hard ground. Through blotted vision, he curses, tears spilling from his eyes.

Ed rolls onto his back, peering up at the sky. An enormous black bird circles overhead. And just like that, Izumi’s words from the hovercraft, right before he and Winry had been taken, return to him at once.

_They’re going to do whatever they can to break you. You cannot fall for it._

Ed watches the bird fly away, Alphonse’s voice fading out of earshot with it. He lets out a sigh, running his hands down his tear-streaked face.

A jabberjay. It wasn’t Al after all. Just an illusion sent from the Capitol to torture him.

The ground thrums under pounding footsteps. Ed turns his head and sees Roy slow to a stop before him. His chest rises and falls with each heaving breath.

“Dammit, Edward,” he pants.

“It’s alright.” Ed clambers to his feet. “It’s just–”

“ _Roy_!”

It’s a woman’s voice. Roy’s face drains of color. He spins, his eyes darting about the forest. “Riza?”

Roy maintains careful silence, his hands just flexing by his sides as if any sudden movement will crumble this precarious standstill into ruins.

“Hey,” Ed begins. “It’s not–”

“Roy!” she shrieks, her voice shaken by hysteria. “ _Roy_!

Ed feels his heart sink. He starts toward his ally, but Roy has already bounded away.

“Riza,” he chokes out, as if the name burns his tongue. It’s the same way Ed felt calling for Alphonse. Calling for a name that shouldn’t ever need to cross his lips in this hell. “ _Riza_!”

That’s how Ed knows holding Roy back is futile. But it doesn’t stop him from cursing under his breath and following. If that woman’s voice holds half the importance to Roy as Al’s does to Ed, he knows this won’t be easy.

Roy’s steps are uncharacteristically clumsy, stumbling over gnarls of tree roots that spread across the ground. But he doesn’t stop so long as Riza continues crying out for him. With every scream that cuts through Roy’s ears, another shred of his dauntless disposition is hacked away, revealing a vulnerable terror all too familiar to Ed.

For the first time in Ed’s memory, Roy Mustang looks hopeless. It’s visceral enough to make Ed feel gutted.

Breathlessly, he catches up. His metal fingers close around Roy’s wrist.

“Hey!” Ed yells, yanking on his arm. The older man looks at him. The stunning desolation in his eyes makes Ed feel like he’s been slammed in the chest. Swallowing his apprehension, he manages to croak, “Sh-shut up and listen to me! It isn’t her! It’s a jabberjay!”

Roy shakes his head. In a voice too broken to possibly be his, he says, “But what if it is? You know that jabberjays imitate. How did they get that sound, Edward?” With perplexing hostility, he grabs Ed by the shoulder and demands, “Tell me! How could they have–”

“Fuck, Mustang, I don’t know!” Ed yells, pushing him away. Roy is so off-balance that he nearly loses his footing when he staggers back. “You know the Games are just a giant show where we’re the sorry bastards they use as puppets!”

The jabberjay wailing in Riza’s voice amplifies. Ed and Roy are barely able to glance at one another before a discordant chorus of screaming pours in from every direction. The sky is blanketed by a rippling wave of black.

Mingling with Riza’s voice is Alphonse’s, crying out for Ed. And then his mother. Winry, Izumi and Sig fall through the mix, as well as voices Ed doesn’t recognize. By the way Roy’s eyes widen in horror, Ed can only conclude they’re _his_ loved ones.

The two don’t hesitate when they break for it. Ed lets loose an anguished scream, as if it’ll drown out the ones that pierce through his head. Something slams into the center of his chest and the impact knocks the wind straight out of him.

“Shit! Force field!” he hears Roy gasp.

“EDWARD!”

“BROTHER! BROTHER, HELP!”

“Roy-boy, can you hear me!?”

“Ed! Ed! Save me!”

“Roy, it hurts! They’re hurting me!”

“Brother!”

“Ed!”

“Shut up!” Ed yells. He is only vaguely aware of Winry’s hands pressed to the other side of the forcefield. She sinks to her knees as Ed folds into himself against the ground.

“Alphonse,” he sobs.

“It’s not real!” Winry cries, but her voice barely makes it past the others. Tears streak her face. She abortively pounds the force field with trembling hands.

“Ed, look at me!” Winry calls to him, hiccuping between her words. “ _Look at me_! Al isn’t here! It’s not real! Edward!”

“Just make it stop!” Ed begs.

 _Not Al_. The Capitol can tear him to pieces, but he will _not_ let them take Al. He volunteered to march into that arena, toward his own death, to keep his little brother safe. Ed can’t fail at this. It’s the only thing that’s important.

Roy sinks to his knees beside him. Maybe he says something. Ed doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about any of this. He’ll die right now if that means Al will never scream like that again for as long as he lives.

“Al, I’m sorry,” Ed whimpers. “I’m so sorry.”

* * *

The space beside Ed is occupied sometime after nightfall. He’s shaken out of his stupor at the sound of Winry’s sigh. She draws her knees up, following Ed’s gaze toward the shore.

Roy hasn’t moved since they returned to camp after the jabberjay incident, nor has anybody tried to get a word out of him. It isn’t that Roy is volatile or that Ed fears he’ll break their alliance. Like a stunned animal or cracked sheet of ice, he’s delicate. Unapproachable. Ed figures taking on the Careers singlehandedly would be less dangerous.

He thinks back to a few hours ago. The anguish in Roy’s voice. The reckless way he pursued of that jabberjay, forgetting he had a target on his back and could be killed at any moment. Everything in the world ceased to matter.

It’s something he doesn’t think he’s strong enough to be witness to again.

“Are you okay?” Winry asks.

Ed’s eyes finds her but she isn’t looking at him. She draws in a shuddering breath. Ed almost has the urge to touch her, fold her into his arms, reassure her she’s okay and they _will_ get out of this alive. But he knows Winry is no fool. How could she be after everything she’s seen?

Instead, he says, “The jabberjays sent to torture Roy…he kept yelling this woman’s name.”

Winry hesitates. She brings her knees down and sits cross-legged, tiredly sagging forward. Now, Ed is the one who averts his eyes. He knows she wants to discuss his own breakdown and how he’d shut down because his brother was suffering and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. How is it that even when he’s placed in an arena designed to turn him into the murderer he never wanted to be, today was still the most powerless he’s ever felt?

He can hear Winry’s strangled voice from a few hours ago, a distant echo in the back of his mind.

_It’s not real! ED! LOOK AT ME. AL ISN’T HERE. IT’S NOT REAL!_

At last, she drops the subject. Momentarily, anyway. Instead, she humors Ed. “The woman screaming for Roy?”

Ed nods, a chill running down his spine from the memory. “When he ran after it, he kept yelling ‘Riza.’” He looks at Winry and frowns. “Did he mean… _that_ Riza?”

“From District 4?” Winry asks.

“The Hawk’s Eye,” he replies. His eyes catch Roy sitting on the beach. Ed was too young to remember much from her Games, but she’s somewhat of an icon in the Capitol. The nickname is derived from her last name, added to her being the best sharpshooter to ever play. All his life, Ed has heard all kinds of stories about her. She won when she was fifteen years old and spent the entire game up in trees with a bow, shooting targets from impossible distances.

Riza Hawkeye, victor from District 4 and the tribute with the highest kill count in history.

“I didn’t realize she meant so much to him,” Winry says softly.

“What I don’t get,” says Ed, his eyes flickering to Winry, “is why she isn’t here. When she was reaped for the Quell, Christmas volunteered to come in her place. You’d think someone like her would rack in all kinds of sponsors.”

Winry swallows and anxiously fidgets in her seat. When she blinks, her eyes glisten.

“Christmas was telling me…” Winry murmurs, but trails off. She shakes her head, begins again. “Riza was never the same after her Game.”

Ed shivers. “Bad PTSD?”

“People say she went mad,” Winry says, then winces at her wording. She immediately amends, “She doesn’t get through a night without screaming. And from what Christmas said she’s not all here.” Winry smiles sadly in Roy’s direction. “But at the very least, she isn’t alone.”

Ed tries to imagine what that’s like. To either be as far gone as Riza or broken as Roy. Hell, Ed’s already halfway there. Without Al and Winry, who knows where or what he’d be right now. If he’d even be alive at all.

But his mind reverts to the man on the beach. Roy Mustang, the heartthrob victor with a myriad of lovers. The man adored by every woman in Panem.

Yet the only one who truly owns his heart is a girl from home, broken in all the ways he is, but distant in ways perhaps no one will ever understand.

Ed runs a hand across Winry’s back, and she goes tense for a brief second. Then her eyes lift and settle into his gaze.

He quickly looks away, but his arm circles her shoulders and he pulls her to him. She melts against him, closing her eyes. They don’t speak. They don’t have to. There aren’t any words that can amount to what they feel. How grateful they are to be together. How selfish they are to be relieved. How terrified they are of losing each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually the first one shot I ever wrote for this AU but I wasn’t happy with it so I sort of just left it on my Google Drive. But I tried to revise it a bit today and I hope it was at least semi salvageable. ;;
> 
> eeep and if it hasn’t been made clear thus far:  
> Ed - Katniss  
> Winry - Peeta  
> Al - Prim  
> Roy - Finnick  
> Riza - Annie  
> Christmas - Mags  
> Maria - Johanna   
> Izumi - Haymitch  
> Though we’ve definitely shifted some things around so that they fit the FMA characters better. We hope ;;
> 
> We also have a ton of other roles assigned that we just haven’t played with quite yet. BUT SOOOON. Ahh, thank you for reading! Sorry if any of it was confusing at all skjghsakgjhsag.


	7. Where is Our Gravity?

There’s a certain energy wafting through the compound’s rec room that makes Ed feel as if he’s stepped through a portal. He can’t say it’s reminiscent to the still purgatory characteristic of the Victor’s Village back home, but there’s a similar timelessness. It’s easy to forget what awaits them aboveground, or even on the other side of the door. While one lacked gravity, the other is comforting – to whatever degree that’s possible during times like these.

Alphonse, clad in 13’s gray garb, sits across a small table from Riza Hawkeye playing chess. She shivers in the oversized sweater that swallows her, though, Ed has already grown accustomed to her perpetual tremors. After chewing on her bottom lip for a thoughtful few seconds, she moves her piece and takes Al’s knight.

“Wow,” says Al as she rolls the small white horse between her fingers. He smiles at her. “You’re really good at this.”

“I played a lot to pass the time back home,” Riza says, setting the piece down. Her eyes fix on the board while she speaks. From what Ed’s seen, she doesn’t make eye contact with anyone who isn’t Roy, and even so, that’s fleeting. “My grandfather taught me how. It’s…easy. I like being able to concentrate on menial things.”

Ed isn’t certain whether or not to approach them until his brother lifts his eyes and gives him an encouraging smile. There’s a free seat at their table, so he pulls it out and sits down.

“What are you guys up to?” Ed asks.

Riza has a collection of white pieces neatly arranged on her side of the table while most of her black ones are scattered across the board.

Ed chuckles. “She’s kicking your ass, Al.”

“There are worse ways to lose,” Al says. The two black pawns he’s managed to snag don’t seem to bother him one bit. “Miss Hawkeye is brilliant.”

“Just Riza, please,” she says, cracking a small smile. She doesn’t look up, but she adds, “Hello, Edward.”

“Think you can take Mustang?” he asks. “Someone’s gotta drag his arrogant ass down to Earth.”

Riza laughs and there’s an outlandish beauty in it that takes Ed’s breath away. She presses her fingertip to the peak of Al’s bishop, tilting it back. “I haven’t been able to beat him yet. He may be the only person who’s ever been a match for my grandfather. He and Roy played together quite a bit after he moved to the Victor’s Village.”

Roy has never mentioned it, but Ed can’t say he’s surprised. Eugene Grumman won his Games at age sixteen without having to kill a single person. He’d made it to the end using pure strategy. To this day, no one is sure just how he did it. The man is still elusive to a fault.

It reminds him of a certain ally of his who attained his own victor’s crown with careful planning. Roy spent majority of his time in the arena finding its weaknesses and ultimately used a gas leak to cause a massive explosion. Since then, the Gamemakers have been a lot more careful with how they constructed their artificial atmosphere.

And thinking of Roy’s chilling broadcast from the other night, Ed knows he had to pay dearly for that.

The rec room starts to welcome more activity as people come trickling in after they’ve finished their lunch in the mess hall. As it grows busier, it’s inevitably less quiet, but it’s a reassuring sort of bustling. Things feel less empty this way.

“I’ll leave you boys to yourselves,” Riza says, getting up from her seat. “I should probably be getting back–”

“Oh, no,” Ed insists. He frowns at the board. “Don’t mind me. Really, finish your game.”

She crosses her arms across her chest. She is a full head taller than him, but she seems so tiny to Ed. She couldn’t have always been this way. It’s difficult for him to imagine Riza Hawkeye not missing the pieces of her stolen by the arena. Who was she _before_? Is that who Roy fell in love with or did the two of them learn to love the broken remains of each other after the fact?

Either way, it doesn’t matter. Grasping what-ifs are futile. This is the life they have now. There isn’t anywhere to move but forward.

“I really should be getting back,” she says, tucking her shoulders in. Her eyebrows twitch, as if the surrounding noise is physically striking her. “Really. But…” She steals a glimpse at Al. “Thank you for the game, Alphonse.”

He starts to clean up the board, smiling up at her. “Anytime, Riza.”

She nods politely at Ed as a farewell and leaves them. Once she’s walked through the door, Ed sighs.

“I didn’t mean to make her feel crappy,” he says. “I forgot that big groups of people make her kind of…”

“It’s alright,” says Al. He folds the board up. “I’m sure she doesn’t think you’re insensitive. She’s really apologetic about the whole thing.” He casts a glance at the dartboard hanging from the wall. “Someone was playing darts earlier and every time she heard the target get struck, she’d flinch. She said she was sorry with each one, even started to tear up when she knocked some pieces off our board.”

Ed lets out a breath. “Damn.”

“I can’t blame her,” Al says. “I mean, when you go through what she did and then have the entire world reduce you to nothing but ‘The Hawk’s Eye’.” He sighs, looking at his hands with a frown. “I wish she didn’t think she was such a burden on everyone. We may not know how she feels, but we understand and want to be here for her.”

“The arena isn’t pretty,” is all Ed says. Al’s eyes snap up to his, the color draining from his face. Ed immediately berates himself, shaking his head. “But some people make it out worse than others, right?”

“Brother,” says Al. His hand curls into a tight fist against the table. It makes Ed wonder just how much of him Al sees when he plays chess with Riza. He already feels guilty enough that Ed was a tribute in two Games when Al was the one who’d been reaped in the first place.

“I don’t regret a single thing, alright?” Ed says fiercely. When Al averts his eyes, Ed says, “Look at me.”

He scoots his chair over so that he’s sitting next to him. Al’s bright gold eyes, the same color as his but shape of their mother’s, rest on Ed’s. He puts a hand on his little brother’s arm, leaning in. “Alphonse, I’d do it again. I’d do all of this again.”

“I know you would. That’s what I hate most about this,” Al admits softly. He blinks hard. “It should have been _me_ , not–”

“I don’t want to hear that crap,” Ed scolds. His fingers tighten on Al’s arm. “I don’t care what happens from now on as long as you stay alive. The arena’s no place for anyone, but I volunteered because I was too selfish to let it take you.”

Al’s clenched jaw twitches. His eyes flutter closed, maybe because the sincerity in what Ed is saying is directly reflected on his face, and it’s too much for him.

“I,” Al says, his voice choked, “I would have volunteered too. If it had been you.”

Ed’s blood runs cold. He stares at his brother, his head feeling very light suddenly. “What?”

Al takes in a slow breath and when his eyes open, Ed realizes why his own certainty had been so painful for him to look at. The irrefutable truth in Al’s eyes grips Ed by the lungs, making it difficult for him to breathe.

“When I turned twelve,” Al says to him, “I promised myself I’d volunteer if they ever called your name.”

“Why?” Ed whispers, unable to manage anything more than that. His heart pounds against his chest. The thought of Al even considering such a thing, let alone shouldering that silent promise for years – Ed remembers the hopelessness of the arena and how it sunk under his skin like poison. It’s a curse that never leaves you, just something else you resign yourself to in order to keep on living.

To imagine Al being plagued by such a thing is more than a nightmare. Ed doesn’t even want to consider it.

“Why did you volunteer for me?” The smile Al gives him his full of lament. “It isn’t any different, Brother.”

Ed’s hand goes slack on Al’s arm. He draws back, swallowing the burning knot in his throat. All this time, had he even bothered to think of what his sacrifice had been doing to Al? Of course, he’d known that he needed to come home, to return to him. But to not consider the fact that Alphonse was suffering every time he tuned in to watch Ed fight in the arena, was foolish. No, it was reprehensible. Ed had _known_ , he just didn’t want to think about it. Veiling that in the knowledge that Al was being kept safe was easier.

“I’m sorry,” Ed says, his voice brittle. “Forgive me, Al.”

“Sorry?” Al’s eyes go wide. He looks _so much_ like their mom at that moment that it sends chills down Ed’s spine. “How could you even _think_ –”

“Not for volunteering,” Ed says tightly. “Never for that. But, I shouldn’t be so reckless all the time.”

“Brother,” Al says. He glances around. Ed has never been one to get emotional, especially in front of other people. “No matter what, we’re in this together. I don’t want you to think that just because I wasn’t there with you then that I can’t be here for you now.”

“Al–”

“It’s always been you and me,” says Alphonse. His words lift the dread from Ed’s chest, if only for this moment. “So I’m not going to leave you.”

Before the arena, maybe Ed wouldn’t have pulled Al in for a hug. But now, when he knows just how precarious their time together is, he doesn’t care. Al goes tense for just a second before gripping Ed almost as fiercely as he had when they’d said goodbye in the Justice Building all those months ago. Ed nods his head against his brother’s shoulder and whispers, “Yeah.”

* * *

“Can I offer you some?” Roy asks, swirling the deep gold whiskey in his glass. The half-empty bottle sits on the table in the narrow room outside Winry’s one way window. She hasn’t moved since Roy joined Izumi maybe ten minutes ago, flipping through the pages of a book Riza had left with her earlier.

“Hmm?” Izumi’s hands fold on her lap. She tears her eyes away from the young girl, somewhat dazed, and blinks up at Roy. “I’m sorry. What was that?”

Roy nods at Winry, sliding the bottle toward Izumi. “Any progress?”

Grabbing it, she tilts her head back and takes a long swig. It seems to go down like water for how apathetic the motion is. She brings it down heavily. “She recognizes me, but only barely. At the very least, she doesn’t turn violent.” She sighs, exhaustedly rubbing her temple. “A few people have gone in to talk to her. We assumed the people who were held captive with her wouldn’t be affected, but Maria makes her nervous. Almost like a caged animal.”

Roy pulls up the chair across from Izumi and takes a seat. His fingers tap against the rim of his glass as he glances into Winry’s room. He hasn’t tried to speak to her yet. Thus far, Izumi hasn’t wanted to risk it ever since she attacked Ed. No one knew just how many of Winry’s memories the trackerjackers had warped.

“Maybe it has to do with the Quarter Quell,” Roy suggests. “Maria was in there with us. She and Edward were both two of the last people Winry saw before she was captured.”

“Perhaps,” says Izumi, absently bringing the bottle closer to herself. “Riza sets her at ease. It may be because the two never had many memories together to begin with.”

There is too much about this that Roy doesn’t understand. It frustrates him. Although a part of him used to be fascinated by the possibilities surrounding uncertainty, they simply don’t have time to figure out just what this hijacking actually is.

Roy would laugh if the circumstance weren’t so bleak. He can’t remember the last time science genuinely captivated him. Ever since his first Games, the pages of chemistry texts seemed to emit odors of smoke, gaseous air, and burnt bodies.

“I was the tribute reaped,” Izumi murmurs softly, staring down at the bottle in her hands. “And she’s the one who’s had to suffer.”

“You knew you couldn’t go in there,” Roy says. “We needed you on the outside.”

Izumi Curtis is an odd brand of terrifying where she’s fully capable of destroying anyone who threatens her, but whose inherent gentleness embraces you rather than intimidates. Roy thinks she would have made a great mom in a different world.

“Why must it be this way?” she asks, closing her eyes. “Why do children have to fight for us?”

Roy doesn’t have an answer for that. Weren’t he and Izumi children when they won their own Games, after all?

The door slides open, interrupting their conversation. Edward and Alphonse hesitantly enter, standing close to the door as if prepared to be dismissed.

“Boys,” Izumi says, pushing the bottle away and getting up. Roy looks down at his own glass, gripping it tightly.

“We think Al should try and talk to Winry,” Ed lets out in a single hasty breath. Beside him, Alphonse straightens up. He’s a few inches taller than his older brother.

“Absolutely not,” says Izumi. When she addresses the younger boy, she looks apologetic. “She may not take kindly to–”

“Winry only knew Al from District 12,” Ed says. “Not the Games. Maybe seeing someone from home will be good for her. It might stir up some more positive memories.”

Izumi averts her eyes. Roy can’t imagine any of this is easy for her. She mentored Edward and Winry through two Hunger Games. Their pain almost seems to weigh her down at times, as if she wishes she could just carry it for them.

“Please,” Alphonse says softly. He steps forward, joining the adults. “I want to help Winry.”

“The moment something feels off, he’ll come right back,” Ed insists. “We promise, we’ll be careful.”

 _We_. Every day, it becomes increasingly more obvious to Roy that Edward and Alphonse Elric are each others’ support. If Winry is family to Ed, she is family to them both.

Roy shrugs at Izumi. “I think they should give it a shot.”

Ed takes in a swift breath. He and Al exchange a glance. The younger boy nods reassuringly.

“Alright,” Izumi finally says. She touches Al’s back. Sternly, she adds, “But you _will_ be careful. For your sake and Winry’s. We don’t want to have to restrain her again.”

Ed shivers where he stands. Roy pretends not to notice. It hadn’t been easy for any of them to tie the thrashing girl to her bed. Even less so when she sobbed and shrieked all through the night.

Al inches toward the door that connects this room to Winry’s. He carefully slides it open, steps inside, and closes it behind him.

Through a speaker on the outside, they’re able to hear his footsteps as he approaches her bed. Winry sets her book down, bringing her legs up and sliding them under the bed’s crisp white sheets. She eyes Alphonse warily.

“Hi, Winry,” says Al. He takes the seat at her bedside. The proximity makes her chest hitch. She draws away from him, gripping the sheets of her bed with shaking fingers.

Edward walks over to the window, pressing his hands to the glass as he watches with wide eyes. His breaths are oddly labored. Izumi comes up beside him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, rubbing her thumb back and forth.

“It’s all right,” she says, keeping her eyes fixed on Winry and Al. “He’s got it under control.”

Ed doesn’t respond or make any indication that he even heard her. But he does relax, if only slightly, at her touch.

“What are you reading?” Al asks, pointing at the book lying on the bed.

Carefully, Winry picks it up, running her palm across the cover. “Riza…” She closes her eyes, licking her chapped lips. “She gave it to me.”

Ed blinks when she speaks. Though Izumi and Roy have both grown used to the hoarseness of Winry’s voice, perhaps Ed is taken aback.

“What’s it about?” Al asks, maintaining a safe distance, but making sure to look at her whenever she tries to search his eyes.

“M-magic,” she stammers, gripping the book tightly. She tucks her shoulders, closing herself off. “A young witch. A heroic witch. She falls in love, but he’s taken away.” Briefly, her lips pull into a smile. “I…I think she’s going to find him, though.” Curiously, she looks back up at him. “Have you ever read anything like it?”

“I don’t read very much fiction,” Al admits sheepishly. He rubs the back of his head. “I’ve always been more into textbooks. My mom used to say I was like my dad in that way.”

“Right,” says Winry, setting the book down against her lap. “I forgot. You’re studying to be a doctor, right, Al? Like your dad?”

A gasp escapes Ed. He bites his lip, pressing his nose to the glass. Roy and Izumi look at each other before Roy joins the two of them by the window, observing.

Al goes frigid, but he relaxes immediately after. “Winry…you remember me?”

“Of course I do,” she says. Her eyes don’t focus on him for more than a second at a time, but she does smile. Her shoulders settle back against the headboard. “We used to pick flowers together to decorate Granny’s shop and our house in the Victor’s Village.” She looks at the barren wall adjacent to her bed and sighs. “I…miss that.”

Ed’s eyebrows furrow at this revelation. Maybe this was something Winry and Al shared that he hadn’t known about.

“I do too,” says Al.

“I miss you,” Winry goes on, hugging her knees. “I’m…none of this makes any sense.” Chills raise on her bare arms. “I just want to…” She trails off, her eyes going blank. In a mumble, she continues, “Home.”

Al’s face softens. “Winry…”

“But we can’t go home, Al,” she says, twisting the sheets in her fists. “Home is gone.”

“This can be our home now,” Al says. Winry’s breathing starts to pick up, and Roy is already stepping toward the door, prepared to yank Al out of there should it be necessary.

“N-no,” Winry stutters. She slides a hand through her hair, pulling it back from her face. “This isn’t… _no_.”

“It doesn’t matter where we are,” Al says, his voice gentle and patient despite the way his hands have gone tense. “We’re here together. I miss you too, Winry. We can talk and spend time together anytime. Maybe–”

“Why has it taken you so long to come?” Winry asks, acerbity cutting through her voice. Her eyes go wide, but they barely focus when she looks at him. “Was it _him_? Was it Edward? Was he keeping you away?”

Al flinches at the vicious way she says his brother’s name. But he remains calm, shaking his head. “I promise that isn’t true. Winry, I–”

“You should stay away from him,” Winry spits. Tears fill her eyes. “He’s going to hurt you. That’s all he does, Al, he hurts people. He pretends to love them and then takes everything away.”

“Get him out of there,” Izumi murmurs. She steps back from the wall, leaving Ed to stand on trembling legs, white with horror.

Roy pulls the door open and says, “Al, come on.”

“No!” Winry shrieks. She grabs Al by the wrist, digging her nails into his skin. He gasps. “You can’t! Not him too!”

Using her free hand, she hurls her book at Roy with full force. He dodges and it misses him narrowly, slamming against the glass window. Ed jumps back as the impact rattles it under his hands.

“Al, please!” Winry cries, closing both hands around his wrist. Desperately, her eyes latch onto his. “You have to believe me! No one else does. Please, Al. You–” She breaks off into a scream when Roy appears behind Al, taking him by the shoulders.

“This was the agreement,” Roy tells him. “We have to go.”

“He’s a _mutt_!” Winry yells, tears streaming down her face. She crawls over the bed, to get to him, but Izumi is instantly by her side, holding her back. She fights her mentor’s restraining arms and sobs, “Alphonse, you can’t let him take you away too!”

None too gently, Roy wrenches Al to his feet and guides him to the door while Izumi sits on the bed beside her, trying to subdue her.

Al stumbles back into the room where his brother waits, Roy sliding the door shut behind them. Breathlessly, Al looks at Ed.

“Brother,” he says, joining him by the window.

Ed closes his eyes, laughing sardonically. “I guess that’s that.” He hiccups, and then the tears come. He quickly wipes his eyes, turning away. Roy’s heart constricts at the sight.

“I hate them,” Ed says through his teeth, staring into the room. Trembling, Winry grabs fistfuls of Izumi’s shirt, sobbing out incoherencies. Ed turns back around and tears are gone, his eyes like steel. “Bradley is going to pay for this. For what he did to her.” His fists clench by his sides. “If it’s a fight he wants, fine. I’ll take him.”

Al puts his hand on his brother’s shoulder. With more intensity than Roy thought the boy was even capable, he says, “Remember, I’m with you. No matter what.”

“You’re not alone,” says Roy. Ed and Al look up at him, as if they’d forgotten he was even here. “We’re doing this together. Alright, Edward?”

Ed chuckles, but it’s vacant. He nods, looking back into the room. “We’re not giving up on you, Winry. That’s a promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve wanted to write something with Al ;-;
> 
> So in the books, Peeta’s childhood friend Delly goes in to talk to him, but the movies did this interesting thing where they brought Prim in instead. And I thought that would be fun to parallel in this AU. Especially since Al and Winry are childhood friends in FMA’s canon too. I hope you guys dug it <3


	8. Wait For Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after "Greyscale." This was actually my response to a drabble prompt I received on Tumblr from waddiwasiwitch. It was "Wait for me." I thought it would fit well with Roy and Riza's story in this AU.   
> I hope you enjoy <3
> 
> Warning for major character deaths.

“Wait for me,” Roy murmured against her mouth. They lay entangled beneath the threadbare sheets of their bed in District 13. His fingertips glided up and down her bare spine, tracing over her scars as he breathed this request into her lungs. Almost like a wish he’d known was intangible.

The urgency of it filled her veins with cold disquiet. But she was his bodyguard. As the keeper of his heart and the bearer of his strength, she protected him from the parts of himself that he was terrified of. Unequivocally, she knew those parts and loved all of him.

She nodded, tasting his fear, shouldering the brunt of his doubt as best as she could.

“Okay,” she said, perhaps to herself as well. If she had something to wait for, that meant it wouldn’t be over after he walked out the door. She ran her hands down his back, following the lines and curves between his muscles as if trying to commit them to memory.

“Thank you, Riza,” he sighed, and then kissed her. It was gentle and kind and safe but somehow her lungs burned as if she were being held underwater. A beautiful kiss that was all at once so painful.

She realizes now that it was his goodbye.

* * *

She doesn’t remember very much from the funeral. It was a service for everyone who gave their lives for Panem’s freedom. Each name was called out, read from a list given to District 8’s leader, Oliver Armstrong. Riza was told she’d be taking the presidency now that Bradley is dead.

After a while, the names started to blur together. Like the tributes she’d killed in her Games, she couldn’t find any meaning in them, no matter how badly she wanted to. Roy’s was gone as quickly as it appeared before Armstrong was reading the next on her list.

That’s all he is now. A name.

When it’s over, she’s approached by Winry Rockbell and Edward Elric who offer their condolences. The two are weary, decades discordantly pounded into their soft faces. It’s almost too much to take in while so much of her has already been monopolized by grief.

Riza looks to Winry first because it’s more comfortable to. She was the one to tell her about Roy. The one whose embrace had grounded her to reality while her mind threatened to drift away. Winry had made sure Riza was okay before leaving to District 12.

“You know you have a home in 12,” Winry tells her, squeezing Riza’s cold and tremulous hand. Her lips twitch into a smile as tears fill her eyes. “We’re here for you too.”

“Thank you, Winry,” Riza says quietly. She tries her best to smile, but it only looks pained.

Beside her, Ed shifts from his flesh foot to his prosthetic. His eyes are trained on the floor. The memory of he and Alphonse eating stew together in the mess hall makes her heart ache.

The cruelty of the world doesn’t discriminate between children and adults, the kind and the hateful. It’s inexorable. Like a tribute in the arena who doesn’t have the luxury of a moral compass. Suffering is not a consequence. It exists without reason.

Riza takes a step forward and, without even thinking, wraps Edward in her arms. He stiffens, biting back a gasp of surprise.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, running a hand down the soft hair he’d braided down his back. In her arms, he is even smaller than usual. “I’m sorry, Edward.”

Slowly, his arms rise and he hugs her back, burying his face into her chest. He chokes out a sob as the absence of his brother seems to crash over him.

“He,” Ed hiccups, digging his face into Riza, “Al, he really liked playing chess with you. He always said…” Ed gasps between his words, barely able to get them out. “Al always…” He tries again, and then gives up on talking about his brother entirely. Riza understands. She doesn’t ask anything of him, only holds the boy while he cries.

Some time later, his arms loosen around her and he’s able to look up. The years vanish from his eyes; all she can see is a desolate child.

“Mustang.” He swallows, wiping the tear tracks off his face with the backs of his hands. “He didn’t die without a fight. The future he wanted…” Ed bites his lip, shaking his head as another wave of emotions threatens to overtake him.

Winry wraps her arms around his shoulders, drawing him to her side. Tears of her own roll down her cheeks, but she is remarkably composed when she looks at Riza.

“He didn’t die in vain,” she promises. “Ed is right. He fought until the very end. It’s because of him that we’re alive.”

Riza accepts this as she’s momentarily pulled under by an inexplicable bout of dizziness. She sways on her feet and closes her eyes as it passes.

“He was a good man,” says Winry. When Riza opens her eyes, she sees that she has taken a step forward, one free hand hovering at Riza’s as if prepared to steady her.

It’s amazing to her how the young girl, once so far gone she could only remember fragments of her old life, is trying to keep everyone on their feet right now. Perhaps fixing what’s broken is inherent for her. Riza glances at Ed’s prosthetic hand, its metal gleaming in the light.

Winry has the hands of a mechanic and the soul of one too.

“Thank you both,” Riza says at last. She nods politely. “And, please, tell me if there is anything you ever need.”

“Same goes to you,” Ed says. He smiles sadly. “Thank you, Riza.”

* * *

Riza sits on she and Roy’s bed, fiddling with the lighter he left with her. The one he said was as good as his heart.

She flicks it on, a tiny flame dancing to life.

As good as his heart, throbbing with similar passion, but not quite. She releases the fork and the flame dies out. She holds the silver lighter to her chest. Without precedence, and for the very first time in days, she begins to weep.

“You reckless idiot,” she croaks, gripping the lighter with white knuckles. “You goddamn fool.”

She curls over her knees as her body racks with sobs. That night in the corridor, he promised he would come back. But she’d seen through the cracks in his determination. He couldn’t lie to her, only to himself. And she’d been willing to lie to herself just the same.

Afterward when they made love, every touch, every kiss, every second that passed them by was just another way for him to say goodbye. That he loved her. That he didn’t want to leave her. That he was prepared to give his life for this country and he was sorry if it meant leaving her behind.

She runs her hand over the subtle new swell of her belly and curses through her tears.

“Fuck you,” she sobs, wrapping her arms around herself, fiercely gripping his lighter. “I didn’t know it was goodbye. I didn’t know I’d still be waiting. I didn’t _know_ , Roy. I’m…sorry.”

Roy Mustang had a will to live like no other. Not because he thought he deserved it, because Riza knows the true magnitude of his self-hatred. He wanted to change the world. He wanted to protect the people he loved. He didn’t want to die, even if he knew it was possible he might.

He wanted to come home.

* * *

Riza doesn’t know what to make of the world now. Where there was once fear, now there is freedom. But where there was once crippling anguish, she has yet to find a negation. Only a new purpose to drive her forward.

It’s a world he would have wanted. It’s the world he promised her they’d see together. She’s determined to tell him about it one day. He needs only to wait for her.

Until then, she will live for the both of them, even though it hurts to. She will be a mother to their child, because they deserve the life that was always unattainable their parents. Because when you love someone, you carry them. You lead them. You follow them. You smile and cry and fight for them. The way she did for him and he for her. She was his bodyguard but he was her lungs. She’s learning how to breathe again. Waking up alone is always jarring. When she’s taken by nightmares, seldom is she able to wrestle free on her own.

But she’s working on it. In time, she will remember how to live and give meaning to his sacrifice.


	9. It Takes Ten Times as Long

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart." - Finnick Odair, Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins)_

While Al is studying with Hohenheim, Ed walks through the corridor with his hands in his pockets. Even though his prosthetics have been upgraded since coming underground by some of the best engineers in the business, they still feel stiff to him. Maybe it’s subconscious but no one’s craftsmanship but that from Rockbell Prosthetics will ever feel right to him.

The door of Roy’s bunker is ajar when Ed passes it, so he takes a step back and peers inside. He can get under his skin but Ed would be lying if he denied he was good company when he needed it. And right now, he doesn’t think he wants to be alone.

He sits cross legged on his bed with his back against the wall. In the low lighting, he almost misses Riza curled up next to him with her head on his lap. Tumbles of blond hair fall over Roy’s legs. He combs through them idly.

Ed turns around to leave, but Roy calls out to him before he can take another step.

Awkwardly, Ed pushes the door open and mumbles, “Sorry, I didn’t know you were…busy.”

Roy’s fingers sink into Riza’s hair. He kind of laughs and says, “Are you going to come in or not?”

He shuffles into the room, closing the door behind him. He glances uncertainly at their companion, but Roy waves it off with his free hand.

“She doesn’t get very much sleep at night,” he explains, his fingers gently twirling through blond locks. “But she won’t wake up when she’s like this. No nightmares right now.”

“She and Al were playing chess,” Ed says, pulling up a chair that sits in the corner of the room. He takes a seat. “I think they enjoy being around each other. They both seemed calm.”

“Similar spirits, maybe,” Roy says, which would make Ed side eye him if he didn’t know any better. She doesn’t have the highest kill count in Game history because she’s vicious. It’s because she’s proficient and had a will to live. The woman who played chess with his little brother, wincing at the sound of darts hitting a target, isn’t an inherent killer.  

Anyway, it doesn’t take a cruel person to win the Hunger Games. Look at Winry.

Ed’s stomach begins to turn. Winry still doesn’t recognize him as anything but a mutt. His cheek flares where she’d struck him like it happened just a moment ago.

“Are you ever afraid?” Ed asks. He runs his flesh fingertip along the cracks and crevices of his prosthetic hand. “Afraid that one day the people you love will start to see you for who you are?”

“The people who love me know who I am,” Roy says. His hand goes still in Riza’s hair. “That’s the only reason I know they’re honest.” He looks down at the woman sleeping on his lap. “What I disclosed in that broadcast, you know, I wasn’t ever able to keep from her. People talk a lot about Riza, in the Capitol and back home, but she’s no fool. That Hawk’s eye isn’t limited to shooting targets.”

“Can’t imagine it made her very happy,” Ed says.

“Wasn’t like there was anything she could do about it,” Roy replies. “I knew they’d never kill her, what with her being such a notorious victor. But there are worse things than death. We both had to be careful.”

Roy’s story is certainly a messy one. And it was probably in the Capitol’s best interest that he kept quiet about it. After all, prostituting teenagers never looks good, no matter which way it’s spun.

“She didn’t like it,” Roy says finally. “But I’m glad it was me and not her. See, I knew what to do with the secrets my companions whispered in my ear. There are things I know about President Bradley that can ruin him.” Roy smirks a little despite himself. “I’m only just getting started.”

Ed wishes he had the resolve Roy had. But then, maybe that is its own twisted blessing. What has the world done to this man to armor him the way that it has? Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe he’s been left so broken, so vulnerable, that he simply doesn’t have anything else to lose.

“It isn’t fair,” Ed says, tapping his knees just to be doing something with his hands. “What they did to you. What they did to Winry, and Riza, and all the other victors.” Ed squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s so fucked up.”

“Edward,” Roy says, but Ed doesn’t open his eyes. “We decide who we are and it isn’t any more complicated than that. Unfortunately, in this world, we can’t say we aren’t anything but the choices we’ve made because so many of our fates were decided for us. Even so, I can tell you that you’re not a bad person. Someone who volunteers to die in place of a loved one just isn’t.”

Ed shakes his head and mumbles, “I’m a liar, you know. I kept a lot of secrets from Winry during both Games. I’m the reason so many people died. Everyone in District 12–”

“See yourself the way the people around you see you,” Roy says. Ed finally looks at him. His fellow victor looks ten years older all of a sudden. Ed is taken aback by it.

“I hate myself sometimes,” Roy admits, but there isn’t an ounce of self-pity in his voice. Only cold certainty. “Some nights I wake up from nightmares and see them as a suitable consequence for all the horrible things I’ve done.” His thumb brushes his fianceé’s temple. It’s astounding to Ed how at peace she looks right now. He isn’t sure he’s ever seen her without the worry lines creasing her face. “But then, so does Riza. For too long we were able to love each other to negate the hatred we felt for ourselves, but it wasn’t enough. We exhausted ourselves. That isn’t any way to live.”

Ed’s heart feels heavy. It’s unsettlingly familiar to him. How often has he gone through each day, living off of other people’s expectations of him because he felt too empty to move on his own?

“How do you shut it out then?” Ed asks. “The part of you that knows you’re _not_ good?”

How does someone quell the feeling of being tilted off the edge of a cliff? When can he stop being afraid that one day everyone will realize he does nothing but bring disaster to the people he loves?

“You start listening to the people closest to you,” Roy says, “and then you pretend to believe them in hopes that one day you really will.” He swallows, then a shiver courses through him. “I want to be the man Riza thinks I am. I’m willing to believe in that. It’s enough for me right now.”

Ed thinks of what Alphonse said to him in the rec room. About how he’d have volunteered in his place. How, even now, after everything Ed has done, he still doesn’t regret that. Ed wants nothing more than to be the person Al believes he is.

“I’m not telling you there’s any way out of the anguish,” Roy says. “There isn’t. And it’s okay to lean on other people. It’s okay to be there for each other. I can’t really imagine a version of this life where Riza and I don’t carry each other through the suffering. But you’re going to be alright, Edward. Your brother knows who you are. And Winry does too, beneath…everything.”

Ed fixes his gaze on his hands, unsure of how to ask his next question. Something that’s eaten at him since Roy’s broadcast.

“How was it?” he asks softly, opting not to look up. “And I don’t mean the women, the secrets, or anything like that. How could you stand being used like that again? Not belonging to yourself even after you did everything you were supposed to do?”

The Capitol brandished Roy like a shiny new blade, both in the arena and after it. Panem stripped him of his will, humanity, and everything but the brittle ideals he can barely cling to anymore. Before Ed became the Mockingjay, he never understood how after surviving the Games there was anything left inside of him to break. Now, he knows better.

Ed steals a glimpse at Roy. His jaw twitches from the question and Ed almost feels sorry for asking. Then he sighs.

“It doesn’t get easier. You just find ways to keep it together,” he admits. Roy lets out a sardonic chuckle. “Putting yourself back together is much harder than falling apart. I didn’t have the luxury of time.”

Ed thinks of Roy’s almost neurotic obsession with his lighter. How he can never quite keep his hands still and always seems to be fiddling with it. Just another coping mechanism to keep from losing his head.

“The first few nights, I stood under the scalding hot water of my shower until the pain was numbing.” Roy closes his eyes. “Riza hated them for it. She was the one worse off, but she was always there to make sure I didn’t sleep alone. Everyone makes it seem like I was the one there for her, but she always tried to suffer for us both. It killed me but I didn’t have the energy to fight her on it.”

“Did you ever refuse?” Ed asks.

Roy tilts his head back against the wall, smiling vacantly. “Did you?”

Chills run down Ed’s spine. How stupid to think anyone has a choice. Ed didn’t want to be the Mockingjay anymore than he wanted to be a tribute. He can’t lay claim to anything, not even his own life.

“What can I say?” says Roy, shrugging his shoulders, “I’ve always been too vocal for my own good. The Capitol knew it. My family was killed as a preemptive measure. Maybe to ensure I had nothing to fight for, or maybe just to make sure I didn’t even try to refuse.”

Ed tenses. “Roy, I–”

“I really don’t have anything left to lose,” says Roy gruffly. “I can fight back, unbarred. They’ve just created their worst nightmare.”

“I’m sure Winry didn’t think she had anything left to lose either,” Ed mumbles. “Her kind heart was the only thing the Capitol hadn’t tarnished, and even that was taken from her.” He nods at Riza. “Don’t be reckless. You still have plenty more to lose.”

Almost protectively, Roy slides an arm over her. “They’ll kill me before they touch her. I swear it.”

“You’re nothing to them,” Ed says. “They don’t care about killing victors anymore. Hell, they tossed us all in an arena to kill _each other_. You can’t fight because you think you have nothing to lose. You have to fight because you have _everything_ to lose if you don’t win.”

Roy shakes his head, a smile forming on his lips. “Are you giving me life-advice, runt?”

“I became a tribute for Al,” says Ed, his brother’s words from earlier winding his stomach into knots, “and I became the Mockingjay for him too. I fight for him. All of it’s for him. What do you fight for, Roy?”

Roy considers it for a moment, absently rubbing his thumb back and forth against Riza’s temple. After a beat, he sighs again. “For tomorrow. I fight to protect the people I love so that they can protect the ones they love. That is all.”

It’s such a simple desire, but it feels like a promise. A new beginning.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Ed says, “but you’d make a good leader, Mustang. Something about the way you speak and commandeer attention.”

Roy laughs. “Maybe in a different world, I would have been a commanding officer or something.”

Riza stirs on Roy’s lap. Ed and Roy freeze. Her eyelids twitch and slowly open. She blinks a few times and stares up at her fiancé.

“Did I fall asleep?” she mumbles.

Roy smiles down at her. “Good morning…or, rather, good evening.” He glances at the clock on the wall, it’s half past nine.

“I should go,” says Ed, getting up from his chair. “Al and Hohenheim are probably finishing up their studying by now.” Ed appreciates that no one gives him grief on why he still refuses to call his father ‘Dad.’

Riza slowly sits up and croaks, “I’m sorry. Did I interrupt?”

“Not at all,” Ed says, and he means it. “I was the one who intruded.”

Roy reaches up to smooth Riza’s bedhead. He gathers her hair in his hands and combs through it. “Edward and I were just talking.”

Ed starts toward the door but before stepping out, he says, “Thank you, Roy.”

“Anytime.” He nods at him. “Really, Edward. I mean that.”

When Ed is in the hallway and out of their line of sight, he hears Riza faintly ask, “Are you alright?”

Ed slows to a stop and barely hears Roy sigh.

“I guess some things aren’t so easy to talk about, still,” Roy admits. Ed hears a shuffling and the creak of bedsprings. Roy’s words are muffled when he says, “Thank you for keeping me sane.”

Riza’s voice comes out low and soothing. “I love you, Roy.”

“I know.”

“I’m here.”

His voice wavers. “I know.”

Ed swallows hard and continues walking down the hall, hating the Capitol even more than he thought possible.


End file.
